First tip -- if you're a guy, wear a straw cowboy hat. I don't pretend to understand the full cultural significance of the straw cowboy hat in Mexico, but I do know that it has replaced the sombrero as the national headgear, though it's not nearly as ubiquitous as the sombrero used to be. The sombrero has become ceremonial, part of a costume used on festive occasions and by theatrical mariachi troupes. The bands of strolling musicians who play in restaurants, for example, wear straw cowboy hats.
Hip young kids in Mexico don't wear straw cowboy hats, nor do sophisticated professionals, and the baseball cap is making strong inroads everywhere, even in rural areas.
The straw cowboy hat seems to have something of the significance of the cowboy hat in America, a sign of solidarity with the nation's rural roots and the romance of the ranchero.
The important thing is that Yankee tourists don't usually wear straw cowboy hats. My three traveling companions, all blond, were usually taken at once as Yankees, but people sometimes expressed surprise to find that I wasn't Mexican. Even when I was taken as a gringo, the hat seemed to confer on me the benefit of the doubt, especially at the ubiquitous army checkpoints where they stop your car to look for drugs. (They have stepped these up recently at the urging of the U. S. government, so don't blame Mexico for the resulting inconvenience.) We were usually ushered through these with only the most cursory of inspections, while other gringos were being searched rigorously. I attribute this to the formal and respectful greetings I offered to the soldiers -- and to the hat.
I live in a U. S. state that still considers itself Western. Wearing a cowboy hat in Las Vegas doesn't arouse any special curiosity outside of the fancy casinos or yuppie enclaves like Summerlin . . . so I didn't feel that wearing one in Mexico constituted any kind of charade. The hat seems to mean more or less the same thing on both sides of the border. Maybe that's the point.
Second tip -- travel with kids. Mexicans have an instinctive reaction to kids that instantly dissolves all linguistic and cultural barriers. They like having them around. They like you for bringing them around.
Third tip -- avoid the Pacific coast of Baja California above Ensenada. Even if you're motoring down from San Diego, go east and cross at Tecate. The Pacific coast above Ensenada offers a vision of the future of Baja California, as more and more Yankees retire or build vacation homes there. The vision will make you ashamed of being a Yankee and depressed about the future of Baja California.
Fourth tip -- go! Just go. Below Ensenada, and outside the city limits of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico is still there. Its gracious and humane culture has much to teach and many ways of enchanting its complacent neighbors north of the border.
For previous Baja California trip reports, go here.
[Photos © 2007 Harry Rossi]