Strangers I met and liked
Cesar, a cab driver in Mexico
Sometimes it can feel easy, even freeing, to open up to someone you don’t know. The cab driver that gets you from A to B, the person who always catches the same train as you…in a safe environment, having new conversations can open our eyes, provide unexpected comfort or inspiration, and at the very least, remind us that we’re all a lot more similar than we realise. This ongoing feature tells the stories of the beautiful strangers I’ve met - and continue to meet - on my travels.
I met Cesar in Mexico in February 2018. My friend Taylor and I had been in Tulum for a few days and we hailed a cab to get us from the beach back to our Airbnb in town one night. Cesar seemed like a nice guy, so once we’d paid him for the trip, we asked if he would drive us to the airport the following night. At 3am the next night, just as planned, he whatsapped me to say he was outside. It was a one-and-a-half-hour drive to Cancún airport, and Taylor fell asleep almost immediately, so Cesar and I ended up chatting the whole way…
Cesar is Mexican, from an island, beginning with C I think. He’s been in Tulum for 6 months and he loves it. He’s visited the cenotes once and loves them. He was working in construction back home, from 6am till 8pm everyday. He liked doing it, but his back hurts often and even though he quit a while ago now, it still gives him trouble, so he’s going to see someone about it. He got married a year and a half ago and his wife really looks after him. She tells him life isn’t all about work, and that he needs to take care of himself and enjoy life and his family too. He loves that about her.
“It’s so important, so nice to have someone really look after you” he told me, smiling into the rearview mirror.
“I have two sons” he continues, “17 and 19.” His previous wife left him and the boys when they were babies, to go off with another man and his children. He was so sad, so so sad when it happened, so he decided to up and leave Mexico, moving with his sons to America. “We were sin papeles” he tells me, recounting how they made it across the border. It took one day and one night, passing through small towns, walking for hours through the desert and across rivers and lakes. They had a guide with them who they paid, but Cesar was constantly scared. He said the nerves and adrenaline were uncontrollable, even though back then it was a lot easier to get into America than it is now. He knew a woman already over in the States who had done it, and she had a soft spot for Cesar, so when she heard he would be trying to cross the border with his sons, she collected them and passed the children through as her own.
They lived in America for 15 years, until one day they were caught and detained. Cesar was detained for a week, and they kept his children too - separately. After the ordeal, Cesar’s sister appealed against the authorities as there had been a breach of rights, so as a way of compensation, the boys were to be granted green cards. Cesar’s elder son now has one, and his younger son is awaiting his, but they’ll never be forced to leave the States, and they are both at university now.
His younger son is 2 years ahead in class because of how smart he is. “He’ll be going to college any minute now, at 17” Cesar beams. “He loves science and won first prize for his State in a competition that I helped him with. I sent him materials for it. I’m so proud of him.” Every time Cesar calls his son, he says: “Papa, I don’t have time for anything other than working. If I’m not working I’m studying, if I’m not studying, I’m in class.” Cesar doesn’t mind though, because he knows his son is working hard.
The conversation shifted, and we got on to talking about crime and narcos. He warned me that Cancun could be dangerous as there are so many there. “They don’t hurt regular people though, just each other. But sometimes there is collateral damage.” He said he’s known narcos and they’re normal people like you and me. In fact, he was kind of in love with one. “A woman moved in next door to me, and she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he told me. “An amazing body with blue eyes. She looked after herself.” Cesar offered to work on her house as she needed to install a water heater. He was so enamoured by her that he told her not to worry about paying him anytime soon, just whenever she could. She laughed and said not to worry, she could pay him. She ended up asking him to do more odd jobs for him. They would drive around in her huge van to collect materials for the building works, but there was always a distinctive smell from where he sat in the passenger seat - cocaine.
“At any given time there were two other similar-sized vans driving close by to us - with 6 sicarios in total,”
Cesar says, glancing back at me briefly, his eyes widening. Cesar said he knew what she did, and it turned out he was right. “She was the head of a cartel, the big boss. And her van was a narcos vehicle. She transported 5 of them a day into the US,” he remarks, emphasising “a day” so much that Taylor, still asleep beside me, flinched slightly. As he continued, I could tell this woman was someone he enjoyed reminiscing about. “She told me that on average 3 of those vans would make it through.”
They would hang out, and she’d ask him to go to dinner, but sometimes he didn’t have the money so she would pay. “With rolls of 100-dollar bills, always asking for her change in pesos.” She had two children too, but they lived far away. The beautiful woman told Cesar that two of her sicarios were in love with her. For that reason, he never made his move, despite his youngest son always encouraging him to. “I would just say to him: ‘No son, I value my life too much’ because it wasn’t her I was afraid of - it was the two men who didn’t just love her, but who were willing to die for her.” So, they remained friends. She would even go for dinner at Cesar's house and he would cook for her. “Caldo de pollo, empanadas...the only thing she didn’t eat was meat, because she said she was watching her figure.”
“You know what’s funny?” he asks me. “I never even knew her real name.”
After two months, the beautiful woman moved on, as she did every two months, so as to not get caught. But before she left, she turned up at Cesar’s place to say goodbye, and handed him a key to her apartment. “She asked if I could drop it off to her landlord, but that first I should go by, because she’d left me everything she had in there. TV, fridge, everything. She told me to just go clear it out before the landlord came.”
I sighed in response to his melancholic tone, telling him that it sounded like a pretty whirlwind friendship - or romance - but that she seemed like a fascinating woman either way. I asked if he’d ever considered looking for her, or tracking her down somehow. “No, no” he replied, “she makes herself untraceable.” Cesar was smiling again, and I got the impression that he kind of liked that about her.
We’re almost at the airport now, and I gently nudge Taylor awake. Cesar and I get back onto a present-day topic. He is enjoying work and life in Tulum, and likes meeting new people when he drives. His wife is still in their home city and they take a 10-hour bus journey to visit each other every 2 weeks or so, but he’s happy. He’s saving up for his sons to come and visit Mexico at the end of the year, as they haven’t left the States since they arrived all those years ago. He wants to treat them and pay for their trip, take them to see the cenotes, and do some other cool stuff. I pull an extra $50 out of my purse and scrunch it in my hand to give to him when we arrive, thinking the tip could go towards his sons’ visit.
We’re at the airport now, and as Cesar pulls our suitcases out of the boot, he asks if I’d send him the article I’m writing about the trip once it’s done. “My stepdaughter loves to read, and always shares everything she learns with me, so I think she’ll like it too.” I smile, warmed at the thought of his genuine interest. I tell Cesar I’ll whatsapp him the link to my article, and that I hope he has a great time with his sons when it comes around.
Just as we’re about to say goodbye, I comment that the stars are so bright that night. “You can see them even better by the beach where there are less lights” he tells me, looking up. Any time he drives by the coast, once he’s dropped a passenger off, he parks up and takes 10 minutes out to look up at the stars. “Every single time,” he says.
Such beautiful words Eva! Really moving :')