Becoming a Writer, The Early years, Ride in the Country

Bajada de Salida a Queretaro

Becoming a Writer
The Early years, Ride in the Country

On one of our carousings we met Bob Vinzant, and it was evident
from the first that he was to become a part of our little group.
Bob was from California, a little older, and was much more
sophisticated than we were. He was a college man, and intended to
teach high school English and write on the side. I’ve lost track
of Bob, and other than an incident, about an LSD spiked punch,
which I heard about much later, I never saw or heard of him
again. But he and I had a real adventure together that summer of
1962.

Bob and I decided one day, while we were sitting around drinking
beer, to hire some horses, and ride to the Sierra of Guanajuato which
we could see on the south-western horizon.

There was, at the time, a stable located behind my little
apartment on Codo street. I haggled with the owner, and managed
to convince him to rent us a couple of horses for an entire day.

Being stupid teenagers we set off for the distant mountains with
only the clothes on our backs. No food, no water, just ourcigarettes
and matches.

Not realizing how far it really was… it took us the whole day to reach
the foothills. A drizzling rain had started falling just before dark, and
we took shelter in a shallow cave. The horses huddled together, and
stood outside in the rain all night while Bob futilely tried to light a fire.
Luckily both of us had worn jackets which kept some of our own warmth in
because that was all we had. However, we did managed to sleep some, and
awoke to a glorious dawn. Mounting my horse I really enjoyed the warmth
it provided.

Realizing, of course, that we were in real trouble with the owner of the horses,
but had decided during the night that we might as well enjoy ourselves.
Riding on, up into the mountains, looking for someplace to eat. What we
expected to find I don’t know, but remembering from the day before,
there was nothing back toward home.

After awhile the warmth of the sun allowed us to stop shivering
and we really began to enjoy our adventure. Not having seen
another human being, or motor vehicle in 24 hours or more, it
felt like we had gone back in time to the old west.

Riding uphill through a forest of pine trees their aroma filled the air.
The only sounds we heard were the bird calls and the creaking of our
saddles. Pausing only to carefully light our brown Principe cigarillos
using only one of our dwindling supply of matches we rested. Our
stomachs began to growl, and completely drowned out the bird calls.
We really needed to find some food.

A little further on we came to a village that at our approach
became deserted, the shutters on all the houses slamming shut. We
called out, but nobody showed themselves. We thought it strange,
but decided after awhile that the men were probably all out in
the hills working leaving the women and children alone. After
riding all day and spending the night in a cave we probably
looked pretty rough to them.

Only one woman came out, and in our halting Spanish we asked her
for something to eat, jangling our loose change. “Si, como no,” she said,
and disappeared into her house.

Dismounting, I tied the horses reins to a nearby tree, and sat
down on a large log to wait. Sitting there, smoking more
cigarillos, we looked around at the collection of adobe houses
nestled there in amongst the tall pine trees. The morning
sunlight filtered down through the boughs of the trees in
scattered patches, and we could see rusting tin cans of flowering
plants all around the little houses. It was a beautiful, peaceful
scene.

Gradually, a few women, huddled in rebozos, came out of the
houses, and began tending to their chores only occasionally
glancing in our direction. We waited quite awhile, worrying that
maybe the woman hadn’t understood us, but could see and smell
wood smoke coming from her abode house.

At last she emerged carrying two, large clay bowls, and she served us,
sitting on the log, a dish we would later come to know as menudo. A
tripe stew with lots of onions and chilies, accompanied by lots of
blue, freshly made tortillas. A meal fit for a king!

Warmed and sated with the delicious food we began to ready
ourselves to ride back to San Miguel thinking to head back
using the paved San Miguel-Celaya highway as a guide, but to
our inquiries for the highway, la carretera, we were directed to
a donkey path instead. That was their idea of a highway! It
was headed in more or less the right direction so off we went.

Riding on, through beautiful wooded country with grassy meadows that
bordered, in places, on wild rocky cliffs that dropped off into deep
chasms…it made my skin crawl to look down into them. We carefully
steered our horses to the far side of the path, as far away from the edge
as we could get. Slowly descending out of the high mountains into the
foothills we were finally able to relax a bit.

During this long ride, and coming to know our mounts a little, we
had noticed that my horse refused to let Bob’s horse pass him. Finding
that amusing, Bob kept trying to sneak by me. Each time he tried my
mount would charge ahead flailing its head, nostrils flaring and cut him
off. He was really serious about it.

Coming to a small, shallow stream that ran with cold clear water
and we dismounted to take a drink. It was very refreshing and
tasted a little earthy. Scooping out some holes that quickly
filled with water so the horses could take a drink too, we
spent some time there lying on the grassy bank in the warm
sunshine. The horses grazed a little, we couldn’t imagine how
with bits in their mouths, but we didn’t dare take the bridles
off because we had no idea how to put them back on again, and
feared losing the horses entirely.

I know some of you horse lovers are furious at the way we treated
those fine animals, but remember I said we were stupid teenagers,
didn’t I?

Riding on, using the soft mud of the little stream to cushion our ride,
Bob began his little game again of trying to pass us. Gradually speeding
up until we were riding at full gallop down the gradual slope of a hill
until coming to a curve Bob’s horse slipped in the mud, and went down,
dumping Bob into the muddy water. Luckily Bob kept a hold of the reins
and was able to keep the horse from bolting off. He was unhurt, except
for his ego, and we stopped for awhile to calm the horses down.

We had lost the path a long time back, but could tell we were
heading in the right direction even though there was no sign of San
Miguel. Gradually we came down out of the hills onto flat land, and
riding all the rest of the day finally reached the outskirts of San Miguel.
It was twilight by then, and we clip clopped along the cobblestone streets
practically unnoticed by pedestrians (mounted riders were pretty common
back then).

Making our way along with the dim street lights barely illuminated by
small wattage bulbs over a few of the doorways, we finally arrived at
the door of the stable on Tenerias street.

The owner of the horses was fit to be tied, and only after handing over
all the money we had with us were we able to get out of there alive!

Callejon La Garza