Friday 12/7/07 In the hills outside of Poza Rica, Mexico
When I neared the top of a mile-long hill and noticed my water bottles were almost empty, I stopped at a small restaurant perched on a rock outcropping. It had a wrap around patio that looked out over a hazy valley of orange trees. The scenery alone was enough to feast on, but the restaurant treated customers to a wide array of fresh seafood and traditional Mexican dishes as well.
Above: View from the restaurant. Most meals at this place were $2–3
I walked in and asked for a faucet to fill my water bottles and two men called out to me from a corner table.
“Where are you coming from, man?” asked one of the men.
“New Jersey. Where are you from? You have an interesting accent.”
“The Bronx! Small world, huh? Sit down Man From New Jersey, I want to buy you lunch and a drink.”
“Oh no, really you don’t have to do that. Plus, I want to keep moving and put some more miles behind me. It’s getting late,” I said, desperately hoping the man would insist and ignore my feeble attempt to be polite and unimposing.
“I insist! Please sit, you must be hungry and the food here is the best. I stop here every year, please.”
Over a meal of quesadillas and tacos, the men, Mateo and Juan, told me about their business. They buy cars and trucks in the U.S. and then drive them to El Salvador where they sell them for twice what they pay for them. This practice is becoming increasingly popular. In Brownsville, Texas alone, 300 caravans (usually people drive one car or truck and tow another behind it) cross the border a day. The vehicles are always piled high with items that are cheap or easy to buy in the U.S., items like VCRs, second-hand clothes, washing machines, stereos, and car parts. Such items sell like hot cakes in small villages where access to markets is limited and from-America goods are perceived to be high quality. The trucks are often small models and the trucks and cars alike are frequently damaged because vehicles needing body work are cheap to buy in the U.S. and cheap to fix in Central America.
Mateo pointed to the mid-sized white moving truck sitting in front of the restaurant.
“You see that truck? Inside are two smaller trucks. I bought the small trucks for $6,000 each. I’ll sell them for $12,000 each in my country. I’ll also sell the big white truck and make five or six thousand off it.”
“How do you find buyers?” I asked.
“I never find them! They find me! I just park the trucks on my front lawn with ‘For Sale’ signs on them and wait. Everyone in El Salvador is chomping at the bit for American stuff because now is the popular time of year for caravans to bring things down there.”
“Oh really? Why is now a popular time?”
“Because people who have seasonal jobs in the states—landscapers, some types of contractors, etc.—they don’t like working in the colder months. They buy a few cars in the states in the fall, fill ‘em with stuff, drive them to Central America, sell the stuff, and then live off the profits for the winter like kings and queens!”
Mateo took a bite of his grouper taco.
Still chewing, he added, “Hey, I make $1,000 a week busting my butt driving a cab in Manhattan. Why would I stay there in the winter when it’s freezing when I could relax by the beach for a few months in my home country? It doesn’t make sense. Once I sell these cars, I’ll relax for three months in El Salvador and have a little vacation. Little! Hah!” He laughed at the simplicity of it all.
I still was trying to figure out how the whole process worked.
“Wait, so how do people sell the little things, like the VCRs? The clothes?”
“Same way. They don’t look for buyers at all. People come knocking on their doors when they see the caravans roll in. It’s like Christmas. You hear those caravans bouncing up the dirt roads and pulling up to a house, you walk over and see what’s for sale. Everything goes within a week, no matter what you have. Electronics? No problem, everyone wants ‘em. Second-hand clothes? Boom, gone. There are no thrift shops in Central America or Mexico. People down here don’t throw away clothes like idiots like we do back in the states! We don’t make sense in a lot of ways, amigo.” Mateo winked. He made another taco.
I imagined a Honduran picking up a ‘second-hand’ shirt from a pile of thrift store clothes brought from the states and discovering a price tag still attached to the shirt collar. Why is this shirt here? It has never been worn! the Honduran wonders. How crazy, how misguided, how bloated with consumerism Americans must seem during moments like this.
When the refuse of one country is prized by another, something is not right. Period.
Above: Mateo, me, Juan
Mateo went on to tell me about his run-ins with corrupt cops in Mexico.
“Down here, it’s different from the states, man. The cops are left to do whatever they want. Just today we were stopped three times by cops, all wanted money. They’ll stop you for the dumbest reasons. One guy said my truck was too big to be on the highway! You believe that? Look at that thing! It’s tiny compared to some of the 18-wheelers you see out there! But this fool got in the car and asked ‘How can we fix this problem?’ In my mind, I thought, There ain’t nothin’ to fix, amigo. I refused to give him money. I showed him my papers, I told him I’ve done the trip 12 times already. I ain’t no rookie, you know? After twenty minutes, after he threatened to throw me in jail, I got tired of dealing with him. I threw one U.S. dollar on his lap and said, ‘Go buy yourself a soda. Get out of here.’ He slammed the door and stormed off. Idiot.”
“Wow! So you just flat out refuse and they go away, huh?”
“Well, yeah, now that’s what I do. I’ve learned that they ultimately can’t stand up to someone whose papers are in order and who has done nothing wrong. Now, if you run a red light, you’ll get a ticket unless you pay a bribe. But if you do nothing wrong, you don’t have to pay anything as long as you stand up to them and be strong. The first year I made the drive, I didn’t know the rules. I paid out over $800 to cops in Mexico alone! Every idiot that stopped me got at least $75 out of me. Uggh, I hate to think about that first drive. Now I know.”
“Man, I’m surprised to hear so many of the cops are corrupt. I haven’t had a single issue with any cops yet. They all just wave and say hello.”
“Of course they do! Look at how you travel! You’re on a bike! Why would they stop you? You look like you have no money. No offense!”
Ahhhh, yet another perk that comes with bicycle travel! I thought.
When we said goodbye, Mateo gave me his address in El Salvador and invited me to stay as long as I want when I pass through. I promised to ring him when I got close.
Posted in Bike trip: Mexico, Interesting People
