Dr. Simi Is Going Down!

Today woke up to the sound of my passengers knocking on my door. I woke up thinking “Huh?”. I had set my alarm the night before but for some reason it failed to sound, so at 9:20 (twenty minutes after we were supposed to leave) a couple of my passengers came to wake me up.

We drove into town where I collected the $4500 pesos ($410 US) that I charged them for our hotel and activities package (this trip we have 8 hotel nights, 1 night at Genisis Eco-Lodge, 2 nights on Isla Mujeres with Snorkeling trip, Cavern Snorkeling at Hidden Worlds and a couple other goodies). Then I cruised to the ruins where I dropped them off with Ernesto to do the tour of the Palenque ruins and then a tour of the surrounding jungle. Ernesto is the man… he’s lived in Palenque most of his life and really knows the ruins like the back of his hand. Most passengers really enjoy the day that they spend with Ernesto climbing pyramids in the jungle enveloped ruins and then hiking the trails in the dense bush looking for howler monkeys.
While my passengers were on the tour I ran to town and took care of errands (emailing my boss, filling up our huge water jugs, eating tacos al pastor…).

A quick aside… Tacos Al Pastor is some of the best food I have ever eaten. Big slabs of marinated pork are thrown on a spit and piled high. Then it is placed in the high intensity flame cooker (the same setup that you would see gyros being cooked in a Greek restaurant). The Taco Artist then heats up one side of the meat until it is crispy and shaves it in thin slices onto a small corn tortilla. It is topped with a sliver of fresh pineapple and a handful of chopped onion and cilantro and then served. It is SOOOOO good… like a little bit of culinary heaven. The best in the World – Tacos Orientales in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Something that I saw in town really bothered me. There is a chain of pharmacies in Mexico called “Farmacia Similiares”. They spread across the entire Mexican map from Nogales to San Cristobal. The mascot for the pharmacy is a mustachioed, overweight, balding pharmacist suited up in his white lab coat and sporting thick black framed glasses. What bothers me is that they really use this mascot to promote the stores and most of the time that you pass one of them there is a larger than life inflatable Dr. Simi Mascot hanging out. Usual scenario – there are speakers stacked outside the store blasting distorted Mexican Trance music and the lovable, cuddly Dr. Simi is outside either dancing the noise (with the churning butter dance technique), waving to the passing cars or giving all the little boys and girls big hugs. What is disturbing to me is the fact that in Mexcio you don’t need a prescription for drugs and this Mad Scientist version of Camel Joe is imprinting the young Mexicans with feelings of love and fun when they think about the pharmacy. “Hey kids, come shake Dr. Simi’s hand. Then come on in and buy yourself a bottle of yummy oxi-cotton. Hee-huh! With every bottle of vicodin that you buy you get a free sticker book and an inflatable Dr. Simi doll!! Dress him in our own line of Dr. Simi doll clothes in a variety of different colors – Propecia Purple, Adavan Amber, Viagra Violet or Paxil Powder Blue!” The whole thing is weird and twisted to me.

Picked up my group and then headed back to camp. I had a chill afternoon watching a bootleg of “Oceans 12” that I picked up in D.F. Then in the evening I helped the cooking crew make dinner. I set up the grill and cooked up the hot dogs that they had bought and then I threw on 2 huge arrachera skirt steaks that I picked up (DADDY!). Needless to say, the combo of my homemade guacamole and the duece attack of 2 ½ foot long marinated mexi-steaks saved dinner.

I cracked open the bottle of rum that I had been saving for Pina Coladas and chilled with crew for a couple of hours sipping Cuba Libres.

It is almost 12 midnight so I have to squeeze this entry in before the date actually changes. I am laying in my bed, laptop on my midsection listing to 2 families of howler monkeys verbally battle. It really is amazing. The deep, throaty growl that the monkeys make is almost unearthly… is sounds like the combination of the repetitive noise that wave make as they slap against the shore mixed with the scream of a rabid yeti.