Topes

It's important to acknowledge when you're wrong. In an earlier post, I romanticized the speedbumps of rural Mexico. I know I can't take back those words, but let me just tactfully add: fuck those fucking speedbumps in their dumb fucking faces.

In the North, whence came my prior remarks, "topes" were an occasional nuisance; but in the South they are ubiquitous, festering carbuncles on the road. They are mosquitos, canker sores, and hate, bound together with yellow starburst and strewn spitefully across the pavement.

I don't begrudge the locals their right to put them there - it's their land and their prerogative - but understand that these are not the official, well-marked, reasonably sized speedbumps placed by the government to prevent reckless driving. These are homemade, clandestine landmines. That they are placed next to roadside stalls is no coincidence; they are there for business. I would be happy to slow down, I guess, but for the love of god I wish they would find a less obtrusive method.

And then the topes suddenly seemed quaint after I encountered my first roadblock. Not the unpassable blockades that Zapatistas are known to organize in protest of government neglect, but the child extortion ones. Here's how it works: you're going 60 miles an hour when suddenly you see some kids by the side of the road. Hopefully you also see the rope they are holding across it. So you come to a stop, and they offer you some dried plantains, homemade bread, or what have you. You have two choices: hit the gas and give little Maria the most righteous rope burn in history, or pay 20 pesos for the snack and permission to proceed. Honestly the kids are pretty endearing and you do get something out of it, but it gets old quickly once your panniers start filling up with baked goods. But I guess this is all still better than child-speedbumps, which I never encountered, to my knowledge.