Friday 31st August 2007
My room at the new hotel, the Hacienda Hotel and Spa was very comfortable with a huge bed,
large bathroom (importantly as I was due to spend a lot of time there towards the end of the holiday)
and a nice balcony (where I could dry my manky hash gear).
view from the balcony.Having got settled in to the hotel and had a light lunch in the restaurant and then I donned proper hash gear and the name-tags (for reasons too complicated to go into here I had two name-tags) I had been given
and went round to the Krystal to see what was happening.
There were a load of people drinking a load of beer and that was just in reception. I found out that there was a run in the afternoon, just a single runsite, with supposedly a long and short run from it. The description said “You will get wet”. I decided to go back to the room and change into wet run gear – that means a tee-shirt that doesn’t get too heavy and rub on the nipples (ouch) and also to pack my rucksack with suitable gear for the run. I packed a spare set of shoes, a complete change of clothes, a towel (I agree with Douglas Adams – never travel anywhere without a towel), my camera, mosquito repellent, suntan lotion, bite cream, mobile phone, and a raincoat (well it had rained a lot). The rucksack was a little heavy, but at least I would be ready for anything.
I trolled back to the Krystal and after a lot of resistance (well, no, actually almost immediately) I had a beer or two. Spare Rib was one of the hares, as was his wife EZ Over. I found him and asked him about the trail. He was a little vague about what and where it was, but told me EZ Over was still out setting it and as I trust her I relaxed. Around 4pm the buses arrived and I climbed onto one of the first of them. The journey was satisfyingly short. We took the bypass round PV and then before we reached THE TUNNEL we turned left and went inland.
I’ve just realised I’ve not mentioned THE TUNNEL. PV is squished between the Sierra Madre and the sea, so if you want to go across town you either go along the shoreline through the downtown area or if you are ever so brave, you take THE TUNNEL. It is simply a tunnel dug through a hill round the back of PV… but… there is no lighting in the tunnel, there is no ventilation in the tunnel, there are bends in the tunnel and there are hundreds of Mexicans in badly maintained cars and lorries in the tunnel. In a taxi it was good training for my diving. How long can you hold your breath? I didn’t quite make it any time I went through the tunnel and ended up choking on the almost solid air about 100 metres short of the exit. In the centre of the tunnel the air is an iridescent blue colour and so thick you can feel it as it scours at your face (all the taxis have all their windows open all of the time).
Anyway, we turned off about 250 metres short of the tunnel up a road I had spotted as I gasped for air as we came through The Tunnel as I moved from the Emperador to the Hacienda that morning. As I enjoyed the relatively clean air as we jumped the traffic lights just beyond the skid pan at the end of the tunnel (not an exaggeration, as the road leaves the tunnel there is a sharp right hand bend and the road is covered in mud and sand, everyone does a controlled rear wheel skid around the corner) I saw the turning and with my “Hash Brain” engaged I thought “I wonder where that goes”, and now I was about to find out.
The bus couldn’t go very far up the road. We stopped outside a waterworks and then someone said – don’t leave anything on the bus as it is going back to pick up the next lot of runners. So I picked up my rucksack and almost doubled under its weight went out to find one of the hares. To my relief I immediately found EZ Over. “Where can I leave my rucksack?” I asked here. “Oh shit, I knew I had forgotten something” was the reply. “Sorry sweetie, you will gave to carry it”… Not being a complainer I just swallowed hard and carried on trotting up the hill and over a bridge. I knew given the heat this wouldn’t be much of a run and now I was carrying a 10kg pack it was going to be a bit of a walk rather than a run.
The trail followed the river up through a village and then out into the jungle. It was so much like being back in Malaysia I had to pinch myself to remind myself where I was. The road, or rather, trail as it was very much a 4WD trail by now started to be crossed by a number of stream. I plunged in on every occasion knowing that cold running shoes can make a lot of difference when it is in the 90’s (both temperature and humidity) but I had to laugh at the Yanks dancing around the puddles. I walked a lot and eventually teamed up with a little chap who (to me at least) looked a little older than me. We chatted and walked trotting down the down hill bits together until I had a rush of blood to the head and left him standing on a hill. We climbed and climbed and climbed. The hares hadn’t been very inventive and just stuck to the track with a few checks and false trails off it that no one bought. We came to a ford where the track crossed the stream we had been following. I took my pack off and sat in the cool clear water and watched the back of the pack go through. There had been a joke email going around about a bug in PV that swims up men’s willies and eats their balls, so the majority of the hashers were treating the water like it was sulphuric acid. When one or two of them asked me about the wisdom of sitting in such dangerous waters up to my chest I simply replied “Why are there so many Mexicans if the rumour is true?” A lot of them nodded but still kept out of the water.
Refreshed by my 5 minutes in the water I stormed up the rest of the trail to the beer stop, a cabin on the trail that had plenty of bottled water and cold beer.
I met up with my friend from the BMPH3, Weenie Schnitzel who had gamely offered to carry my pack on the way up.
The butterflies in the place were incredible. A jackfruit tree had dropped one of its football sized fruits and they and the flies were making a big deal out of it.
It turned out that because of the rain the hares had abandoned a proper home trail. They had planned to take us back down the river on the way home, but all the rain had precluded that as the river was a lot higher and it wasn’t safe to take hundreds of unfit Americans down it.
Refreshed Weenie and I set off back down the trail. We ran together until we came across Lick’mm an old friend from Switzerland and the BMPH3. Weenie and I chatted to Lick’mm for a while until the running bug hit me again and I hitched up the rucksack and carried on running down hill. When I reached the ford I again stopped. I had put an ice cold beer in the rucksack and I sat in the water up to my neck watching people struggling up and down the hill until the can was empty and then it was “On On” down the hill to the end. Most people I passed yelled encouragement as I ran past them, but I was surprised by some of the abuse I got from some of the hashers “I hope your knees burst” was one curse I heard as I ran past – odd people…
Back at the bridge close to the end of the trail the hares were once again in evidence. The trail was to end here and there was a bar just above the bridge serving free beer for all hashers.
I went in and dumped the rucksack and cooled off again in the river.
Once close to blood heat again I wandered around and was amazed when I ran across Patsy someone I knew from Malaysia. She didn’t recognise me, but then again Patsy was never known for her intellect. She would get lost 100 yards from her own house in KL, but nevertheless it was nice to see her again.
Eventually it was time to pour ourselves back into the buses and head back to the Krystal hotel. I found my Belgium buddies, Dr PP, Yark Sucker and Rumple Foreskin close to the pool.
I was hungry and I was really pleased to discover that the food laid on by the Hash was fantastic. I gorged myself on ribs, shrimp and streak and the sat zombie like staring at the pool. Eventually Weenie and Maximus (another friend from Brussels) came over and said “Aren’t you going to come for a swim?” It seemed like a good idea so I stripped down to my running shorts and went in.
Things are ‘kinda blurry’ (my lawyer told me to use this phrase) thereafter but I do remember all sorts of shots, buying a round, female nudity in the pool and it pouring with rain. Somehow around midnight I decided I was getting too cold and it was time to go. I found Rumple and Yark hobbling towards the exit (Yark had broken her leg 4 weeks prior to the IAH07) so I accompanied them. Fortunately for me they too were staying at the Hacienda…
Saturday 1st September 2007
Now in retrospect my first conscious memories are of me having breakfast back at the Krystal, though I am sure I had a good night’s sleep and a shower and shave back in my room. I found the WiFi hot spot in the hotel and was charged for the privilege of using it, but I did at least manage to phone my mother back in England using Skype and check my emails.
Afterwards I paid a visit to the Hash Bazaar and bought myself a great tee-shirt which says "Math is hard, hashing is simple" on the back (yes I know, I would prefer it to say "Maths" too, but I was with Americans) and a IAH07 baseball cap . I then just had time to go and return my p.c. to my room and prepare for the Hash – this time I would take absolutely nothing I didn’t need with me and certainly no pack and then it was time to try to start to get on a run.
The first coaches were leaving at 11:30 for various runsites, but I had been told the best run was going to be at El Eden the set used in the Schwarzenegger movie Predator . Unfortunately there was only meant to be one bus there, and it was meant to be one of the last buses departing at 13:00. I went out to the front of the hotel and found the large group waiting for the El Eden bus. There was clearly more than a bus full of people waiting, and we all knew that, so things were a little tense when the bus arrived. I managed to get one of the last seats, right in the back row of the bus. The driver made it very clear that he would not go anywhere with people standing, so about 20 or so disappointed hashers had to get off. One really desperate individual locked himself in the coach’s very smelly toilet and rode in there for the whole trip up to El Eden! There was a near riot as we pulled away, and apparently as a result the mismanagement managed to find 2 more coaches for the run. These immediately filled and we ended up in a convoy for the journey to the runsite (see My Google Map).
This run was being put on by the Iguana Hash House Harriers, a travelling hash with a reputation… Worryingly they marked all Iguana virgins (including me) with a V on his or her forehead…
The turning from the main road towards El Eden quickly lost all hardtop and seemed to be more like a sandy riverbed than a proper road. The buses parked under a large rain tree on the outskirts of a small village. The Hares gave us a short briefing and then requested a 15 minute start and went of laying a live trail. After about 10 minutes we got bored and started off after them. Pleasingly the trail headed straight to the river and stayed in the river. That certainly kept things nice and cool, but the river was in full spate, so quite a few hashers had early and unexpected baths not to mention knocks and bruises. The trail petered out at a lovely pool around which there were a couple of restaurants and over which there was a bridge. There was a lot of cursing and searching (I was amongst the Front Runners) while the rest of the runners caught up with us and someone eventually said “There is a tequila in the car park”…
The Hare who was handing out the local hooch (which I decided to forgo) said that this was the end of the trail, but those who wanted to could hike up a mile or so to the Predator filmset.
Almost everyone decided to go up and have a look. It was a long hard climb up in the baking sunshine. When I got to the top I was surprised to find a large car park with a lot of very normal looking saloon cars parked there. The road looked almost impassable for 4WD to me. Anyway I went down to the river and plunged in. There was a nice pool at the foot of a large waterfall.
(not my photos)Some local kids were using this as a watershoot. It looked like suicide to me and I decided to give that a miss. I pressed on up the river to the pool above the waterfall and plunged in there up to my neck and stayed there to cool down for about 10 minutes. Several hashers passed me pressing on trying to find the filmset. I must admit I had problems seeing what the fuss was about.
There was meant to be a helicopter, waterfalls, aerial ropeways (zip lines), etc etc, and I had seen nothing more than a bar, and as I had no money on me that wasn’t very interesting, so I headed back to the coaches and the joys of the packed lunch. It took me 40 minutes to get back to the raintree. I grabbed a couple of bottles of water, a beer and the packed lunch. The water was much needed, the beer excellent, and the packed lunch a terrible disappointment: an apple, a couple of very sweet cereal bars, and a cube of cheese.
I squatted on a rock and amused myself with a bit of Yank baiting. There was a perfectly nice log by my rock, but as the first tired hasher lowered his arse towards it I said “Watch out for the creepy-crawlies”. It could not have been more effective to poke him with an electric cattle prod; he shot upright and ate his lunch (such that it was) standing. As soon as the next tired hasher spotted the log and looked like sitting on it we joined in a chorus of “Watch out for the creepy-crawlies”. Soon there were half a dozen people standing round the perfectly serviceable log intoning this mantra and recruiting yet more believers in the evil Mexican bugs that would eat you alive if you sat on them. I started laughing out loud, but still no one would sit on the log. I tried to explain that it was a joke, but was told that I was mistaken and there were bugs in the log that would climb up inside you and eat you from the inside out! Eventually when the crowd was talking about the kind of bugs that could do that and people they knew who it had happened to a couple of hashers came and sat on the log without anyone noticing. When someone pointed out their folly one of them laughed and said, “Who has been telling you that crap?” and carried on sitting there. The crowd then dissolved and everyone shuffled off to find somewhere else to sit. In an act of contrition I got up and offered my ‘safe’ rock to a couple of them and went and fetched a sixpack of beer which I doled out amongst the people still standing.
Eventually most of the people had returned and had been subjected to the near mandatory teasing “The sandwiches were great” – “The roast chicken is great…oh, has it finished” etc etc. and the hares called a circle. By this time most of the children from the village were in the branches of the huge rain tree watching the strange gringos. Iguana H3 have a reputation for nudity and strange ways of drinking beer that cannot (for legal reasons) be described here and certainly were not suitable for the eyes of children. Fortunately for me my V had just about washed off in the river and there were far many more Virgins than non-virgins and the proximity of impressionable minors meant that a lot of the more unpleasant ways of making someone drink a beer were severely curtailed. Most of the nudity and immoral behaviour was hidden from the children in the tree by forming a human wall around the goings on but judging by the giggling from the branches above they did see some of it.
When we got back on the buses back to the Krystal, one of my neighbours said "What was the big deal about the Predator filmset anyway?" I was just about to agree with him when everyone else on the bus started saying "Didn't you see the helicopter/set/Predator/great waterfalls/etc it was great!" He shook his head and looked very puzzled. I kept quiet; this has happened to me before when running. I become so focused on the trail that I miss everything else, damn!
Back at the Krystal the beer flowed like water though there was a nasty rumour going around that we were about to be wiped out by Hurricane Henriette that was steaming in our direction. Nevertheless the party got under way. I once again sought refuge in the pool and if my memory serves me correctly the storm did hit around 8pm, but the party kept on going in the torrential rain and wind. I do have a number of snapshots in my mind, but not on camera, of lunatics dancing in the rain and playing naked volleyball in the pool at around 1am after the storm had abated. Somehow I managed to find my clothes and shoes and got back to my room at about 2am. Other hashers I know kept partying all night and went skinny-dipping in the hurricane surf at dawn.
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