Cheech & Chong, Cheech & Chong

Grupo Maglen

La Bufadora: One of the largest marine geysers in thy world

[...] legend has it that many years ago, during one of these migrations, a baby whale became separated from the group while snooping around the coastline. During its wandering it got stuck in the rocks, and in its search for help it decided to launch a jet of water and then a larger one and so on. Over time, this whale turned into stone until it merged with the rocks at this place." [link]

Now to get to the Bufadora is, to be honest, a terrible and painful experience for a Mexican native. And when I mean native, I really don't think about the ones pictured below. Before the Geyser you have to go through a long Cheech and Chong market where you can find wool Raiders jorongos or ponchos, sugar-covered churros and piña coladas.

I wonder why these kitsch displays of objects create such a stress in me. Maybe it's the whole context. Men covered in Mara Salvatrucha's tattoos telling you "Mami, come here, I'll give you what you want! Margaritas, I'm your man! Women and kids running towards you with bags of peanuts and flour chicharrones, low-end Mexican dresses hanging from the ceiling and as a huge cherry on this creamy, disgusting pie: lined up, cheap imitations of Louis Vuitton bags lie on some counters.

Now you have to go through this path. There is no other way, that is if, you want to get close to the Bufadora. I kept thinking it about it on the way back, it comes from the incongruence that these artifacts do represent our culture but in a way they do not, at all.

Carlos "Danny" Herrera, margarita drink inventor

Maybe it shows there's this gritty, nasty delight in eating Cheetos, clearly a bag of puffed chemical ingredients that are not cheese nor corn. That all cultures have places or objects like these that perpetrate myths or vague stories. That we are suckers for stories even if they are not original or represent the places we go to, someone is willing to pay for 5 bucks, put on a Sioux plume crest on their family members and perpetrate the fantasy of being somewhere but not really there.