Pieces Parts

Ah, Mexico. As a friend of mine says “I hate Mexico because it’s a dirty, filthy, nasty place. But I love Mexico because it’s a dirty, filthy, nasty place”. My travels with Alvin brought me to a number of places on the west coast. Most tended to be blue collar towns with some outlying resorts. I’ve never been to the Caribbean side. The nastiest of these towns was Guaymas. Located on the eastern side of the Gulf of California, it’s about 90 miles from the Nevada border. Hot and dusty, it’s a fishing town when the shrimp are in season. The center of town is the Plaza of the Presidents. As you go out from there it just gets poorer and poorer. This is no garden spot.

When I got off the plane at the airport we walked out the back ramp of the 727 stretch. As I walked out the door the heat hit like a fist. My first thought was “Jet exhaust” but no, it was just the ambient temperature. The ship was docked at a commercial pier. Running parallel to the dock were 6 sets of railroad tracks used to bring cargo to and from the ships. In the last few days they had been loading a lot of grain. So sloppy were their methods that all the tracks were filled with spillage. After a few days of short showers and lots of sun the grain began to rot and the flies came out to feed and breed.

We were going crazy on deck trying to work. We were soaked with sweat and covered with flies. I couldn’t wait to get away from there. We had fly paper hanging all over the place and it was amazing how quickly one of them would “fill up”. Once we were at sea we could start to deal with the problem but first we had to get away from that dock. When we did leave we brought a complete food chain with us. There were an uncountable number of flies being eaten by some 50 chickadees that were in turn being eaten by the two sparrow hawks that joined us.

After a few days we noticed the fly population was dropping noticeably. Also there were little piles of beaks and feet with a few yellow feathers. Evidence that the sparrow hawks were on the job. The aerial acrobatics were amazing. The hawks chased the chickadees with blinding speed and maneuvering. We also found a few of the chickadees stuck to the hanging fly paper from trying to get an easy meal. These went over the side as you would leave most of the bird on the paper if you tried to pull it off. Besides, there is nothing nastier that a well used piece of fly paper. About a week later the sparrow hawks disappeared having dispatched all their prey on board.

I’ll be back to Mexico soon and I can promise you I have several rolls of fly paper stashed.