Cacaluta Turkey Buzzards

Buzzards. Turkey buzzards. Vultures. Our end of Cacaluta was alive with them. When I first stepped out on the beach, a bunch of them stood sentinel on every post by the park sign. Sinister looking things. The colony was down by our end, surrounding a black swamp lake, probably living off whatever the alligators left behind.




Mike swam out to a boat that dropped a couple off on shore and chatted with the pilot in Spanish. The pilot believed the swine flu epidemic was the will of God. He had some apocalyptic notions of retribution for sin. Dead is dead for whatever reason but the boatman took some twisted comfort from believing it was God’s decree.

I took a walk from our end of the beach to the other. It took much longer than I expected. Cacaluta must be quite a bit longer than Zipolite. You can see why developers would imagine this as a kickass place to have deluxe all-inclusive hotels. For now, I like it just the way it is.

A flat round fish with sharp looking fangs and fins had been tossed on to the high sand by a big wave with no hope in hell of getting back. I’m not usually over concerned with the welfare of animals. It gave me a despairing wave of a flipper to show he was still alive. I make it a point not to touch wild animals and I didn’t like the spiky look of his fins so I took my shirt off to scoop him up and drag him into the water. Those teeth latched on to the life line of polyester, delivered all the way across the globe from Korea, and held tight while I picked him up, ran to the water and heaved him almost past the breakers. It looked for a while as if the Pacific was going to toss him right back but he made it.

Around the bend was a dead puffer fish, long past saving. I’d done my good deed of the year. God’s will as the man in the boat would have said.

This second stretch of the beach is the longest and much longer than it looks as there is nothing to give a perspective of size to the rocks at the far end. I walked to the end by the rocks, remembering how, back in 2002, I had attempted to reach Playa Maguey by climbing around the craggy shore. There was the spot where I’d been forced to climb up into the bushes, a deep wet cleft requiring a two foot vertical leap for the next available handhold. The more I thought of it, the more I realized a cracked skull with one fatal slip on the slippery stone was almost a certainty whereas death by snake bite in the bushes was a fractional possibility. I chose the bogeyman over the real danger, fought my way through the bushes and came back out on to the rocks, with only minor cuts and scratches from thorns. Onward.

By luck that day, there were three young guys further ahead collecting oysters from the rocks. My first thought was the hope that they were cool because, if they weren’t, I could be in serious trouble where no one could hear my death struggle over the crash of the waves. They were great. As soon as they realized what I was trying to do, they got all excited and managed to explain by pantomime that the cracked skull I’d avoided so far was just a matter of time if i didn´t turn back. What I didn’t know was that the bends ahead just kept coming. If I had managed to avoid injury, I still would never have made my destination before nightfall. The whole spit of rock was one giant crooked finger that couldn’t be seen all at once.

They were ready to go and I was to go with them. Being much younger and more nimble than I was, they scampered lightly down the wet cleft with a drop. When I headed for my tried and tested bushwhacking route, they didn’t like it and warned me there could be snakes in there. I looked down the face of the cleft. Well, at least this time, there was someone to pull my remains out of the water. It wasn’t a problem. Two of the boys held their clasped hands together for me to step on and they lowered me to safety like an elevator.

Back at the beach, we searched for a hidden trailhead amongst the clumps of alders. One patch of sand with stunted trees looked the same as any other but eventually we found the shirt left behind as a landmark and were on our way through the jungle forest, stopping by a swampy lagoon where the boys pointed out some alligators. I couldn’t actually see them. Those things are almost impossible to spot. They look like rotten logs or part of the mud. When I finally saw them in Chiapas on the Canon Sumidero boat tour, it was like those strange 3D pictures in the 90s where you had to stare at a psychedelic design until, wham, they just leapt out at you. Alligators are like that. I could have sat on one before I even knew I was close. The boys knew what to look for and they could see them. Good enough for me. I was warned against going through there at night as it was especially dangerous then. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything like that.

The trail took us about 15 minutes. It wasn’t as clearly marked as the one I took last Tuesday and we had to stop and discuss different turning points; another reason I wouldn’t be exploring the wild by moonlight. We came out by the fork in the road between Maguey and Cacaluta and split up. I never saw them again.
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The tide was coming up quite high when I turned back to where I had started. More fish had been pounded on to shore and the buzzards were eating well. They went for the eyes first. The rest would have to ripen a bit more in the sun. There was even a land mammal that must have crawled too close to shore and drowned before being thrown back out. I think it was one of those raccoon/anteater/mutant rat hybrids but it was hard to tell. If there had been a snout, it had been the appetizer or maybe some flat round fish with sharp teeth like the one I’d rescued earlier had got to it first. Just the stripped skull and sun bloated torso remained.




Of course I got my camera. Matt and Mike had already taken off but not before moving all my belongings to a high and dry spot and throwing a bag over my water to keep it reasonably cool.

Everyone was gone, including the four people who showed up with a home made shelter. Just me. Not another soul on this big beautiful beach. Dang. It was eerie. Me and all those buzzards pecking away at the soft spots. If I got too close with the camera, they would back off to let me have the next bite. They weren’t up to fighting for their food except with each other and they seemed to have a definite set of rules amongst themselves about the order.

The tide was high. Some brown scum floated in from somewhere. Maybe the pounding of the water brought it up from the bottom. There was a strong smell of sulphur. I got ready to leave. Two very hopeful buzzards looked down on me from the rocks above, keeping a close eye on the state of my health.

Not a bad day for a Tuesday. It’s good to be alive.

Dang! Youtube disabled my chosen soundtrack for this video over the obvious copyright issue. Somehow I doubt the deceased Karen Carpenter would be too upset about being cheated out of her percentage of nothing. So, do yourselves a favor and play "(They Long to Be) Close to You" by the Carpenters while you watch.