To say Summer in Manzanillo is hot is like saying the Antarctic is cold. Manzanillo in the Summer is more than just hot, it is tremendously hot, it is boiling hot, sometimes it is even scream-out-loud-incoherently-stupid-hot. You can’t merely fry an egg on the sidewalk, you could cook a steak. It is not just the heat that can get unbearable- it is the swelteringly oppressive humidity. I think the entire ocean just evaporated. I’m also quickly running out of adjectives to describe the kind of heat here, the kind that makes you feel like you need a cold shower… while you are still taking a cold shower. If there was any more humidity in the air I would be swimming, or more accurately: drowning.

It's hot.

We just survived our first Manzanillo Summer without air conditioning. (I know you just gasped. I can hear your sharp intake of breath from here. I wish it was a breeze.) Many people at this point will say “Lots of the locals live the entire year without air conditioning, stop whining you big (sweaty) baby!” To which I would respond “Yes they do! Humans can also live with half their brain removed… But not if they don’t have too!”

The truth is- I swear some Mexicans are built differently than us Gringos. While I run from shade tree to shade tree like a soldier taking cover from snipers in Vietnam- they can walk, work, and exist in a level of heat that would (and does) melt plastic. To add insult to injury, they can pull it off in jeans and long sleeve shirts and they look good doing it!! As a counterpoint I was talking to a friend and he told me he has lived here all his life but still has never acclimated to the heat. However, to a guy who was born in the chilly and dreary clouds of Seattle, my body just wasn’t made the same as these Mexicans. I blame my parents.

Even the dogs have developed a means of dealing with the heat. They lay on the side of the road like they are dead. They don’t even breath. They go into some kind of sun-induced hibernation that lasts in the range of six months or until they smell some freshly grilled meat.

Enough whining. The trick to surviving Manzanillo’s arduous 100 and-then-sum degree temperature with 100 and-then-sum percent humidity comes down to one word: Heat Management.

Ever wonder why, as you drive through the neighborhoods in Manzanillo, you see the locals just sitting with their families and staring at the walls? Heat Management. They don’t talk, they hardly move, they just sit there on their white plastic chairs. Heat Management. Once in a while you will see some lips move, a head will bob ever so slightly, but if you weren’t watching for it you’d miss it. One word: Heat Management.

About a month ago I wrote an article on the Manana attitude of many in Mexico. To the uninformed it can lead to thinking Mexicans are lazy. The famous picture of a Mexican vaquero (cowboy) taking a nap under his sombrero and pancho has made many people wrongly believe that this culture is lazy. What they don’t realize is that, at the moment that photo was taken, it was probably so hot that if he lifted his face out of the protective blessed shade it would melt right off like so many pieces of chicharon!

But I digress. Back to the heat management: In all honesty Manzanillo’s Summers are survivable in a pinch without air conditioning. Plenty of hardy, sturdy, and mule stubborn people do it. We did it. Other gringos have done it for years. Remember the humidity goes in a cycle: it rises and rises until you just don't think you can live another day with it- then it rises for three days more- then it rains. And for five heavenly minutes life is cool and wonderful. Of course that rain then evaporates and the humidity returns and thus the cycle is perpetuated.

Take heart my pasty friends! Wipe that sweat off your brow! You can do it! Just take a lesson from the locals- keep yourself hydrated, stay out of the sun, pray that it rains, and take up the hobby of staring at walls while sitting on white plastic chairs surrounded by those you love.

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