如尚未阅读，请看 Part 7, 第六部分, 第五部分, 第四部分, 第三部分, 第二部分 以及 第一部分 关于墨西哥拉巴斯的系列文章
I actually got a reception at the bus station. An elderly Mexican man greeted me like I was his best friend. “Cabo aeropuerto?” he asked. I nodded.
He took my travel bag and rolled it, walking with me into the station and through it. He stopped at a seat just alongside the marked space from which he said my bus would depart. He wasn’t an employee of the station, I began to realize early on—just an entrepreneur with a remarkable ability to make himself seem indispensible. In spite of having been quite capable of rolling my own bag, I was happy to give him 20 pesos just for letting me see him in action.
There was a comic moment shortly after the bus for the airport came. I rolled my bag over to the baggage man and he put it in the baggage compartment and gave me a receipt. Some 10 minutes later, as the bus boarded and I presented my ticket, the driver called someone over, conferred a moment, and then directed the baggage man to take my bag off the bus!
I had no idea what was going on and no one in my immediate vicinity seemed to speak English. Finally, the driver prevailed upon a young woman boarding the bus, and pushed me up to her. She was typing on her phone and continued for some time. Finally, she showed me her phone’s Google Translate screen, the inverse of the English-to-Spanish that I often used. I read: “You are taking a VW Van to the airport. It will be here a little while after the bus leaves.”
I thanked her. The bus did leave. I waited what seemed a long time in a state of mild uncertainty. Are we ever sure what is actually happening in a country where we can’t command someone’s attention with a clear question we’re sure will be understood? But the van came exactly as promised. I got on, and it rolled away from the lovely downtown area along the malecon, that personification of the “the eternal small tropical city"。
Imperceptibly, we entered the far larger part of La Paz, a city of more than 250,000, that wasn’t “dressed up.” It consisted of seemingly endless box stores, strip malls and long commercial boulevards that have popped up laissez-faire. I nodded against the side of the van and closed my eyes, reopening them now and then to check our progress. Finally, I could see only parched hills, cactuses and scrub vegetation out the window. I turned to my book, but after a moment decided to nap.
Todos Santos
Next time I opened the curtain, I could tell we were coming into the town of Todos Santos, the art and tourist mecca that was the only pit stop and way-station on our journey. My eyes enjoyed the streets rolling by outside the window. How did a town full of art galleries and restaurants like this one ever arise in the middle of the Baja desert? It appeared to be a nice place to spend a few days, nearly as nice as La Paz … even more art, perhaps. The ocean was also nearby, although I couldn’t see it. “But come in the winter!” a voice inside me said.
Out of Todos Santos, we followed the ocean. Some interesting-looking shoreline developments and communities kept me rubbernecking most of the time until before very long, we passed a road sign that said San Jose de Cabos Aeropuerto, 25 km.
Preparing for the final flight
At the airport, I made it through security with a good four hours until my flight, but I was fine with that. Arriving at Cabo just a few days earlier, I’d actually seen people personifying the popular caricature of the resort town by falling into one another’s arms at one of the high-priced watering holes just outside the terminal, swearing to one another how much they intended to drink. I wanted to have more than enough time, just in case some screwball complication took place.
Above: Mariachi welcome at the duty-free store of the Cabo airport!
I read, rested, and walked the corridors. Noticing that my phone charge was down to 30 percent, I asked a passing middle-aged female employee, “Is there any way to charge my phone here?” She shook her head, very sternly, from side to side.
A little while later, a yellow-and-orange vested young woman was helping check in passengers near me. She reminded me of an old friend of mine. I approached her about the same thing, thinking, what’s the harm of asking the same question twice?
“See those little gold things in the floor?” she said, pointing to one. “If you pull that handle up, I think you’ll find a plug.” I did so, and saw that she was right. It seemed a bit loco, though, to have to stand there next to my charging phone in the middle of the pedestrian walkway.
Not far away, there were some generic café tables, no doubt because the concourse was connected to a food court that was on a slightly lower level, by some stairs that were a few feet away. I pulled a chair over to the “little gold thing,” plugged in my phone and sat down in the chair.
Pulling my harmonica from my pocket, I started to play songs I knew and loved, right there in the middle of the wide walkway. I wasn’t trying to get an audience, and didn’t. But it helped the time go by in a pleasant way and would remove any anxiety about my phone on the trip home.
Back on American soil
It was still light when my plane touched down in San Francisco. Customs didn’t take very long, and as I approached the baggage carousel, I was pleasantly surprised to see my own bag coming right up to meet me.
I’d taken the BART train back to Walnut Creek enough times that I was able to get to the track and through the turnstile in very short order. Just 30 feet (about 9 metres) in front of me, I saw my train sitting there as if it was waiting for me. My string of luck ran out there, though. As soon as I started walking towards it, its doors closed and it pulled away.
I had half an hour to wait for the next one going my way, the digital sign said. I sat down on a concrete bench, exhausted from my day of travel. When the train arrived, I trundled over, boarded the nearest car and sat on an equally hard plastic seat. I passed the next hour in the company of myriad other Sunday evening passengers, including the ubiquitous traveller talking loudly to nobody anyone could see. He appeared to be discoursing on the subject of electronics.
Our progress seemed very slow. Once, the train stayed in a station a good five minutes for unknown reasons, and I wondered whether we’d have to disembark, go up to the street and fare for ourselves. This had happened to me the year before on my way to catch a plane for Hawaii. Finally, though, we reached Rockridge, the station at which Barbara and I had agreed I’d phone her and she’d leave to pick me up.
At Walnut Creek, I rolled my bag off onto the platform, carried it clumsily down the long flight of stairs, scanned my card at the turnstile and walked the short block to the little street designated for pick-up.
Barbara wasn’t there yet. I sat down on a bench and felt the cool breeze blowing—a delight after southern Baja. New mid-rise buildings made the street a bit of a wind tunnel, it seemed.
Reunited with my life’s companion
Barbara’s green car—for the 25 years of our relationship, she’s maintained that it ‘s blue—appeared, turning the corner up at the end of the block. I met her curbside and loaded my things into the trunk she’d popped open from the driver’s seat.
We caught up on things during the short ride and on the walk up from our condo’s parking area. I followed my wife into our home, rolled my travel bag into my office, and went to sit down on “my chair” at our dining room table. We made small talk and practical talk, shyly at first, the way husbands and wives do at such reunions.
As we did, I looked around our home and at the woman in the kitchen, my life’s companion. My eyes lit upon the large ceramic fruit bowl made by a potter friend, with its playful, abstract areas of bright colour, that I’d gotten Barbara for her birthday; at the many paintings, most of them my own work; at the face and form of my partner; and at the giant dragon plant and ficus tree that she’s cared for so lovingly since even before we married and moved here. We’d opened the terrace doors and the window of my office, and cool air was moving through the house.
It all reminded me of something. Ah! Of the enchantment I’d felt at the spell of beauty cast by my home-away-from-home, Hotel Posada LunaSol in La Paz. Our actual longtime home on this Earth, I was happy to note, was bringing me the same streaming feelings of joy. After being away, one always gets a fresh glimpse of home upon return.
I liked what I was feeling.
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图1： Wikimedia Commons; all other images: Max Reif
