Carnival in mazatlán - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 88

The team this time was Sea World aquarist Kym Murphy (now with
Walt Disney's Imagineering ); Bob Kiwala, the collector at Scripps; and
me. We took o¤, truck piled high with scuba gear, an air compressor,
folded-up fish receivers, pesos for the trip, and enough Budweiser to
get us to the border, where we could get some good Mexican beer. We
had everything under control, but there was still one unknown. In those
days it wasn't possible to make a reservation in the States for the truck
to get on the ferry; you could only do so at the ferry o‹ce in Mazatlán.
No hay problema, Señores, we were told.
It's 1,300 miles from San Diego to Mazatlán. On U.S. roads with
three drivers, we figured, the trip would take less than two and a half
days. In that part of Mexico, however, it is dangerous to drive after
dark; the highway down the west coast of Mexico is not fenced, and
cattle and horses are free to roam. Unfortunately for the animals, in
this arid country where food is scarce at best, the choicest grass grows
right along the edge of the pavement, watered by occasional runo¤ from
the highway.
At sixty-five miles per hour at night, there's no way you can stop in
time if a black cow decides just as you're coming over a hill that the
grass is greener on the other side of the road. That would spell the end
of the cow, the truck, and the collecting trip. The big Mexican trucks
drive at night, but they protect their grilles and radiators with heavy
pipe structures welded on the front. This doesn't do much for the poor
animal, but it does save the trucks. A flock of vultures feeding by the
side of the road is a frequent sight south of the border.
It struck me that natural selection must be in favor of the far more
visible white cows and against black cows in Mexico. So much for se-
lective breeding of desirable color varieties of cows and horses through
careful husbandry; now they're being selected through di¤erential death
rates from the Mexican big rigs.
We stopped the first night in the city of Hermosillo and the sec-
ond night in Los Mochis, where we made an observation-only visit
to the red-light district to check out the nightlife. Getting up early
on the third day, we gassed up the truck and headed south for
Mazatlán.