Hammock Review:

Manzanillo, Mexico

“What is power?'“

That is a question I pondered as we hiked up the path early in the morning to the abandoned house of a famous drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero, an original founder of the once-powerful Guadalajara cartel, a major mover of cocaine in the 1980s. The organization’s influence began to wane after Quintero’s 1985 arrest in a Costa Rican mansion after murders he committed earlier that year of Americans in Mexico, causing the United States Government to put out a $20 million reward for his capture.

It was his rise from power from the 1970s to mid 80s that earned him the nickname “El Narco de los Narcos*.” He was the most powerful drug lord of his time.

El Capo.

An intriguing kind of power, the stuff movies are made of.

The stuff Hammock Reviews are made of.

But it all fell apart, of course, just like it does in the movies**.

The Mexican Government seized five of his mansions, including this one high up on a hill overlooking Manzanillo.

To be on top. Power.

Or it is?

The views going up, and at the top, were indeed powerful. Quintero’s old house, along with the path up, has become a sort of ipso-de-facto park, where locals maintain the trails: for 20 pesos you can hike to the top. Like other more mainstream parks not built on cocaine, many people go on a regular basis to exercise; others come in groups for a nice weekend activity.

It is pretty cool. And just plain pretty.

Not my lousy pictures from my cheap cell phone, but the actual views. They are gorgeous.

That is something 100 percent of visitors can agree on. When looking around at the other people hanging out there, no one was bored. No one was dissatisfied. Everyone was sharing a common joy.

Not cocaine. But the breathtaking views.

Caro Quintero must have enjoyed it too.

What was he thinking of while he was looking at these views? That Mother Nature, God, science, or whatever forces gathered to form these awe-inspiring views must have been so powerful themselves to create such powerful views?

Or did he think, “I, Rafael Caro Quintero, am powerful, being here on top of this view?”

Did he think he owned the view? And everything he saw? Like the famous scene from The Lion King, where Mufasa tells Simba, “Everything the light touches is our kingdom.”

Did Caro Quintero feel that way?

Did I feel that way, when I was very lamely throwing my M’s up for Manzanillo?

Or when I was slightly-less-lamely not throwing my M’s up for Manzanillo?

I didn’t feel like everything was my kingdom, like I owned everything. But I did feel like I owned the moment, that I was in the moment, 100 percent partaking in it and enjoying it.

In other words, I felt great.

We enjoyed a picnic there—Marlene, Dulce, Tony, and Me. We had sandwiches, with beef, lettuce, cheese, avocado, and a little habanero that Dulce had made from food we had gotten at the market the previous day.

Is that how Capos live: enjoying Sunday morning picnics with friends, just at consistently higher altitudes? Did Caro Quintero enjoy sandwiches like these? Did he enjoy friends like these? Did he enjoy conversation like ours, filled with light-heartedness and laughing? Was the only difference that they sped up their heart rates with cocaine instead of coffee (the latter of which is what we partook in—certainly not the former, kids)?

But did Quintero enjoy a sort of fellowship as we did on this Sunday morning? Did he enjoy the company of others?

Then, in moments of his own, enjoy independent peaceful thinking, contemplating the meaning of life and philosophizing about power, propped up by expensive armchairs Hammock Review writers can only afford to lean on metaphorically?

For one beautiful aspect of being so high up with such wonderful views is the kind of unique ability it has to allow the consistent transition of moments enjoyed together in conversation to those independent moments, where you are still aware of those around you, but revel in independent whimsical thoughts. The consistent pivoting between enjoying moments alone and enjoying moments in fellowship is awesome and wonderful, and somehow effectively organically facilitated by views at such heights.

Helping me prove a point where I always thought Alexander Supertramp from Into the Wild had it wrong***. The whole story he believes that happiness is most pure or real when experienced alone. So he seeks solitude in the wilderness. Ultimately—**spoiler alert**—he misidentifies berries and eats one that are poisonous and dies. But as the happy Hollywood ending is marked by a loss overshadowed by a greater victory, he has a revelation—”the greater victory”—”happiness only real when shared.”

But, in my view, it is not so binary: we can have happiness both alone and shared. In fact, we probably need both, in a sort of spiritual dietary balance.

At this moment, in this morning, on top of this hill, I felt I had both.

I could look to my right and partake in joyful conversation. Then look to my left and lose myself in my own thoughts—or lack thereof, a sort of momentary meditation.

We spent over an hour enjoying such views mixed with relaxed conversation, with the trust that Dulce had not poisoned our sandwich with questionable berries or anything of the like, so that she could take over as Capo or Capa, King or Queen of the Hill.

But could Caro Quintero have such trust in his friends, in his associates?

Or was he always on the alert that was someone was trying to kill him?

The house was so isolated not just for its beautiful views, but for its practical views and ability to defend, much like a castle. There are open areas that snipers could shoot out of, much like the battlements castle had for the archers of old.

It is easy to imagine many things when strolling through the house. The bathrooms functioning. The bar flourishing with drinks and discussion. The rooms furnished with furniture and the the furniture furnished with people.

But is not easy to imagine the place furnished with hammocks.

It is easy to be killed in a hammock****.

Or, what ultimately happened, being raided.

So much needed to be done to prevent such things from happening, from such power from being taken.

So it is power?

I cannot deny it is power, to a degree. You do have power over others. A sick brand of power.

But power over oneself, personal freedom it is not. You have ceded your freedom; you have indentured yourself to the duties necessary to maintain power. If you have to make so many concessions to maintain power, it is not true power in any healthy or enviable sense.

For instance most politicians, in my opinion, do not have true power. Or, more correctly—as Supertramp believes, and I do agree here, it is important “to call each thing by its right name—they do not exercise their access to power because they are concerned about retaining the power; they are preoccupied with getting re-elected. As such, they feel as though they must react to polls, donors, and other factors in order to maintain “the power,” to maintain their place “on top of the hill.” They relinquish a great deal of it for the desire to keep it.

If, for instance, Caro Quintero could enjoy all of the beauty in this mansion, and the others he had not just throughout Mexico but in the region, without being dominated by the fear of losing those things that would cause a series of necessary precautions, then I believe that is a brand of power.

I also believe that is unlikely. A “carefree Capo” is extremely improbable.

A carefree non-Capo, who has true power over themselves, is more probable.

This, I believe, we can attain, usually to great degrees in only stints. We too have fears of things we may lose that we try to hold onto.

We also have responsibilities like work.

But not always.

There is vacation.

When I have such free time I often use it to exercise a great joy I have had in life: travelling alone. It feels like freedom and a power over oneself. I can do what I want. Not forever. But for a week in Manzanillo, I felt that way.

And it felt great.

I could wake up when I wanted. Write. Stroll around. Go to the beach. While of course there are always limits in life, it felt limitless.

Manzanillo was an ideal location to facilitate this. Not a big city, it was calm. Not an the quintessential or more famous tourist destination, it was calm. More of an industrial and shipping town, and as a cab driver in Mexico City later claimed, it’s reputation as a drug trafficking area also discouraged some from visiting. Also of this helped make it the ideal location to facilitate my version of a high-level of freedom. Hammock freedom.

But I do admit, at times travelling by yourself can be a little lonely. In Manzanillo, I was lucky to have friends, led by Marlene, and her friends, a couple—Dulce and Carlos—as well as Tony. It was perfect to avoid the potential loneliness.

So it was the perfect freedom, within reason. To basically have the a week to do what I wanted, when I wanted. But not the freedom the high school philosophy teachers will try to tear into in elective classes. A reasonable freedom.

Hammock life is freedom. Hammock life is power, a healthy power. Over oneself.

The power a hammock helps facilitate is the relaxation of the mind, for whatever material power we possess, we usually trip ourselves of via anxiety and its constant encouragement—or demands—to safeguard our possessions, whatever form they may take.

As we finished our descend from the Capo Caro Quintero’s old house, I joked that our Capo life was over. Tony returned with the jest that we were “Capos Capados”—Castrated Capos.

But really, we were Hammock Capos, as many hammocks waited in Playa La Boquita below.

We then went on sort of a beach tour that day, going to Playa Peña Blanca, a sort of virgin-ish beach that required a long drive down an unpaved road.

But it was well worth it.

After rehydrating with some delicious tuba, we then re-dehydrated with some delicious locally-brewed beers before moving on to another beach, Playa Tapo de Ventanas where we had some delicious seafood and then worked off the calories (or some of them) to a little hike to Playa de Arena Negra.

As we were returning home for the day, I saw something else beautiful on the right side of the road.

It wasn’t this specific image—as I later snagged this from the Other Internet—but it was the outside of this building that said Pittsburg Pinturas, which must have been derived from Pittsburgh Paints. And I knew I felt at home.

Manzanillo did feel like at home for the week, right from sitting in seat 21 (the number of Pirates legendary right fielder Roberto Clemente) in the bus from Guadalajara to arriving at dock 21 in the Manzanillo bus station.

But, of course, the hammocks also helped me feel at home.

There are not exactly hammocks everywhere in Manzanillo. But essentially, where there are beaches there are hammocks—that is true anywhere, but also in Manzanillo. It may not have be quite as prolific in hammocks as some Caribbean hammock powerhouses like Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and northern Colombia, but it has pockets here and there that are hammock heavy. Playa La Boquita and its surroundings is where I saw the most hammocks, which could be used as evidence in the hammock sciences that, given its proximity to Caro Quintero’s old house, Capos like hammocks. Unfortunately, they never knew (until they read this Hammock Review) that one does not need to go into a life of crime in order to enjoy hammocks. Quite the contrary, actually.

I also some some in the city center, vendors had some of their own to relax while selling their goods. I was approached by a friendly hammock vendor at Playa Tapo de Ventanas and saw hammocks a few scattered other places. Additionally, there are allegedly some hammocks at various restaurants and hotels.

When I left Manzanillo on the bus back to Guadalajara, I watched Cocaine Bear, dubbed in Spanish. It seemed like an appropriate exit.

If a hammock rests at the beach but there is no one in it, does it rest?

Power

Me with my “it was well worth it/vale la pena” look.

The beach itself doing a much better job with its “its well worth it” look.

Tuba

La Playa de Arena Negra

*If you were to call us the Hammock Models of Hammocks Models, the most powerful Hammock Models of our time, that would be okay.

**But not like it doesn’t in Hammock Reviews, where a strong Hammock Review, just like a strong hammock, never falls apart—or at least takes longer than the length of a feature-length movie to do so.

***Well, he had it wrong several places, but this I find to be the most pertinent to my life, as I have never partaken in crucial moments of berry identification. And while I have certainly indulged in trips that have included extreme lacked of preparedness, they have never included excursions into the Alaska wild, for it is much easier to find poisonous berries, or other deadly dangers, there than a good hammock.

****Perhaps while they were less common than the aforementioned battlements in the castles of old. If hammocks were common in castles, someone—an anti-hammock provocateur most likely—went to great lengths to erase their presence from the literature.