Are You Going With Me?

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By Mark Koruba

In 1983 The Pat Metheny Group released their Grammy winning album “Travels”. The double record also received dozens of other accolades and awards. It gained the favor of many of my friends and I and was moved into heavy rotation amongst the lot of us, even those that had not knowingly heard a Jazz note in their lives.

That same summer brought about an opportunity for two of my friends(Mike and Ed) and I to travel to Mexico City to visit my father. With permissions, visas and passports secured we set off on an adventure none of us will ever forget. On previous visits to the country I had befriended two individuals(Ricardo and Luis) that met us at the airport with my father. The five of us were all 16-17 at the time, so the party began as soon as we arrived at the house. That evening we made plans with Ricardo to take his conversion van and travel all along the coast of Mexico for three weeks.

We embarked on what would turn out to be an adventure of a lifetime the following morning. We all shared in the driving duties. Whomever had the wheel had control of the cassette deck. The three of us from the US repeatedly popped in “Travels” with no complaint from our Mexican compatriots. We knew they had been completely won over when they chose to play Metheny as well.

We spent time on Ricardo’s parents cattle ranch in Vera Cruz. Horseback riding every day with forties of Carta Blanca and an eye out for magic mushrooms that may be growing in the manure. We moved onto a ramshackle film studio along the coast. The place was filled with props of every kind. I spent two nights sleeping in a stuffed hand the size of Kong’s, though it was made in human style. We continued down and then up the coast still in tiny cabana hotels, sleeping in hammocks with the ocean providing a backdrop for all that we did, Campfires and young women on the beach. The freshest seafood essentially on tap prepped in every imaginable way.

The highlight of the journey was visiting the ruins at Tulum. We went just after midnight and stayed until dawn. We swam in the ocean and the hot water springs there. We thought upon and talked about the history of the place and the people who once lived there. We saw fireflies blinking in unison in numbers that I still cannot reconcile in my head. It was a dreamscape that remains unmatched in my lifetime.

We made so many memories on our sojourn that are etched in my mind with the colors, sights, smells, tastes, feelings and people of Mexico, but most of all the whole thing was tied together by “Travels”. Dick Clark once said, “Music is the soundtrack of our lives”. I could not agree more.

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