backroad, dirt track |
This could be the earliest ever hammock
hanging.
Round here; I think the Mexicans will have
already hung theirs.
Talking of Mexicans and hammocks, isn’t
there a personal connection?
I went to Mexico a long time ago.
And did you buy a hammock?
I intended to.
But didn’t?
No.
Why not?
It’s a long story.
I’m not in a hurry, I’m going to stay in
this hammock for at least three hours, though if I snooze don’t take it
personally, I had an early start this morning.
You’ll need a good weave.
Please explain.
Well, I can’t remember all the details now
but the perfect hammock is all about the weave, I read it in the People’s Guide
to Mexico.
An excellent read I believe. (editorial note t)
Indispensable.
But probably out of publication as it was a
hippy thing, no?
That may well have been the case but it new
its stuff when it came to hammocks and THE place where the best are made.
And where is that?
Like I said I can’t remember all the
details.
Can you remember any?
It’s in Mexico. In the south, I was up in the north.
Ah.
But I was heading there, and I had done my
reading up and I was in the north but I was a veritable fountain of knowledge
(and a bit of youth) on all things hammock-y. Especially the weave, the double
weave in fact.
Tell on.
Well, I found myself alone in this village
market and I started wandering amongst the chickens and the tortillas and I
per-chanced on a hammock merchant.
What did you do?
Well, as I had already made up my mind to
buy my-one-trip-to-Mexico-in-a-lifetime hammock in THE place down south where
the best are made, I saw this as a good opportunity to get some tactile and
visual practice to supplement my literary understanding.
And?
I found this hammock hidden, amongst the tat, that was the mother of all hammocks. It answered every one of the twenty or so
criteria for the perfect hammock that I had learnt by heart.
But can’t remember now.
I have a hammock.
Is it the one?
No.
Why not?
Already, already thinking.
What’s that?
Well, in my mind I had decided that I was
going to buy this hammock in the village where they were made from the
half-crazy witches who made them from a secret formula.
And you were in a chicken and tortilla
market in Northern Mexico, what did you do?
I asked the price.
In Spanish?
Claro.
Y?
The vendor named a price, I made a mental
note so I would have a future financial point of reference whilst haggling with
the half-crazy southern witches, thanked him and walked away.
No problem, so why the long face.
He called after me, dropped the price by
half and I turned and said no thanks, I’m not interested.
Yeah, good; you wanted to buy this down
South.
Then he knocked another hundred pesos off.
Nice.
I smiled, shook my head and said, no,
thanks a lot.
And?
Another hundred came off.
Good haggling.
I wasn’t haggling.
He was.
I know, and the hammock was The mother of
all the mothers and the price he was now offering it out was a gift. It was
hammock-vans.
Nirvana?
Si.
Y?
I left, travelled south, went west, went
east, continued further south. I was in Mexico for three months before crossing
into Guatemala and I never saw another hammock that came even a couple of trees
close to the wonder of that one.
Bummer.
I even went back for a
second-once-in-a-lifetime-visit-to-Mexico trip, and nada.
Already, already thinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment