September 2008
Back on Tulum Beach, Yucatan Mexico.
10 months since we set off and we’re back on our favourite beach in Tulum to see Roberto who we met in November 2007 when Mexico was our first destination. Staying this time as his friends instead of paying guests. We arrived on a dazzling blue Saturday afternoon, a 3 and a half hour flight from New York with a purser on board who fancied his chances in stand-up: “I apologise ladies and gentlemen but unfortunately due to heavy storms and inclement weather we will be delayed here for 4 hours”. A heavy groan then with the flick of a tannoy switch the purser again: “Only joking folks we’ll be ready for takeoff in 5 minutes”. We were delayed an hour but hell what was an hour compared to four? We landed with a bump…literally. The wheels hit the runway and bounced. Nervous applause confirmed our arrival in Cancun. We cleared the diplomatic customs process; press a button, green you walk through, red you get all your bags searched. Zealous but friendly tourist touts outnumbered the arrivals by 3 to 1. We dodged them for the bus ticketing desk. 2 bus rides; first Playa Del Carmen (where I scoffed a delicious sweet tamale from a streetfood vendor…mashed sweetcorn wrapped in its leaves) then a change for the bus to Tulum. Under 2 hours and we were back in our favourite one horse town where the clouds had rolled in and a light rain was washing across dusty pavements. We ran across the road with our bags, conspicuous new arrivals among colourful locals and the feral hippy community. We settled in for a late afternoon meal in La Nave, the same Italian waiter recognizing us from our last visit almost a year ago. A 700 peso taxi drive down the Boca Pila took us back to Shambala where passing Hurricane Gustav was chopping up the ocean and throwing waves until they were lapping around the first 2 cabanas of Shambala’s stake of the beach. Roberto greeted us with big hugs and a chilled bottle of white wine which we drank between running to rescue furniture and cushions from the encroaching sea. Two days later one of the beach mattresses was whipped away as Hurricane Hannah passed by.
Two weeks later beach life had kicked in. Waking early to sun pulsing through the palms, long walks with Roberto’s black labrador Enzo, our feet sandpapered soft, lapped by waves…loads of bad hair days. Morning breakfast prep with Wendy, Tia and Marisella whilst Pancho and Demtriou swept the overnight tidal dump of seaweed from the beach. Not many guests due to hurricane season but whoever is here, we all come together at the communal breakfast table sharing travel experiences and stories. Anya and Annameke are visiting from Holland for a few days. One evening sitting as a group on the beach among the cabanas of Shamabala, we are inundated with migrating crabs. They cross from the opposite side of the Boca Pila road, coming out from the jungle to the sea to lay eggs…hundreds of them crossing en masse…a wave of scuttling movement focussed on reaching the sea, crawling over and around us. One large claw and one small…snapping at us if we try to move them away…one climbed a palm and dropped from above causing one of the Dutch women to scream. It’s like a James Herbert book come to life but it’s also very funny. Roberto’s Aunt Connie and his mother are visiting, it’s amusing to see the family dynamic, Roberto answering to his mother…two headstrong people. Some days after they arrive Roberto heads off to California leaving Jorge in charge…expecting me to check on him. As if. Jorge is a rule unto himself, a diver, a risk taker…he’s hilariously good fun and quick witted.
Each morning we looked for signs of nocturnal turtle activity…deep grooves made by their slow drag up the beach pulling with their front flippers, coming out of the sea at night to lay eggs…protectively digging a second hole several feet away to distract from the first. Lucky to witness this one day at 2am, woken to gather quietly to watch the turtle scoop then throw clumps of sand backwards over its shell with methodic efficiency. Local people swept their feet across the tracks to clear evidence of the turtle’s path…everything illuminated by the full moon, like someone had flicked a light switch throwing silver across the sea…humbling and beautiful.
We’re now in Flores, Guatemala…arrived yesterday, no chance to do much yet as most of the day we sat on a bus. So here’s some more journal entries from our time on the beach at Tulum.
Jorge taught me several new words in Spanish but when I put them together it came out “I want to eat but my food is under the bed with my clock and watchstrap”. Also staying at Shambala, Donna an American Healer has lived in Tulum for several years. Marc and Roc are Buddhists visiting from Spain, Donna and Marc met a week ago and fell in love. In such company conversations often turn to the philosophic…or the surreal. Donna announces that she can’t use a torch, as soon as she does the batteries run out….her friend won’t let her use her booklight. We suggest it may be Mexican batteries but she insists no. Her mobile phone is constantly being charged because “I suck the energy out of things”. I avoid sitting next to her. Her meeting with Marc was predestined years ago; in her dreams she was repeatedly visited by a man with ‘diamond blue eyes’… we point out that the Buddhist’s eyes are hazel…apparently we hadn’t noticed the first 2 days when his eyes were blue. The night before the three of them had seen green lights in the sky, visitations, beings…not human. We don’t have an answer…perhaps they did? Marc and Donna have since announced their marriage. I wish them all the best, their love may have grown quickly but seems sincere.
Another guest is a beautiful ball of enthusiastic energy called Marianne. An ex-dancer based in LA as a make-up artist, born in Morocco. She did Madonna’s nails for a shoot and regales us with hilarious Hollywood anecdotes. Dave and I went with her to Tulum town to eat huge pizzas at the Italian owned Basilica. Somewhere between being handed the menu and ordering I got bitten on the nose by a mosquito causing my nose to swell up like a balloon…sitting opposite, Dave couldn’t look at me without laughing. Ominous black clouds moved in and it went black along the Boca Pila for almost 2 hours when Hurricane Ike, following the path across the Gulf of Mexico already churned by Gustav and Hannah, passed on the horizon. High winds thankfully blew away the mosquitoes. We are on hurricane watch daily on the laptop…hopefully Ike will pass but selfishly we realise it will wreak havoc on some other place; leaving communities devastated before it blows itself out.
We’re also on Mexican Federal watch. The Feds are driving around wearing black balaclavas armed with large guns whilst straddling pickup trucks. It’s a mesmerising display of intimidation and machismo. They’re allegedly trying to close hotels in the vicinity of Tulum ruins and possibly further along the Boca Pila down to the biosphere reserve, a stretch of tourist goldmine. We pass them parked up at a hotel at the beginning of Boca Pila road. We drive back and close Shambala’s gates but thankfully they don’t venture down this far. A day later I see a heavily armed truck drive by but am told that these are the marines and not the Feds; more firepower and dark sunglasses.
Girls screaming…I waded in to investigate and scooped a giant green grasshopper from the sea…too big to hold in my hand at almost 6 inches long…I put it on my arm where it cleaned itself, antennae twitching, thorny spikes on its sprung back legs beaded with water. I placed it high up on a palm tree in Shambala’s grounds. I dreamt that night it was a giant locust which stripped bare every palm tree at Shambala. More unnerving I found a large brown scorpion among clothes in our open suitcase… tried to catch it, rather out the room than in, but it was too quick so I zipped it in the suitcase…and promptly forgot. Several days later we moved rooms and I asked Dave to shake out the suitcase but watch out for the scorpion. The scorpion hit the ground outside the room and Dave jumped a mile in the air yelping…Roberto’s Mum and Aunt doubled over laughing. I took my flip flop and squashed it. I’m not a fan of killing things but also not a fan of sucking poison out of my ankles.
The Mexican National Independence day was on 15 September…they kicked off with fiestas and drinking in Tulum town, driving knackered double decker buses illuminated with red, white and green festive lights, music banging, filled with drunk revellers….driven by drunk drivers.
Jorge took us, Marianne, Anya and Annameke snorkeling at Dos Ojos cenote where we swam from one amazing cave to another. Cenotes are natural underwater pools/sink-holes, created where part of the cave roof collapses and connected by a huge underwater river in the Yucatan. Long stalactites and the cave roof so close, we were wary of hitting our heads. Snorkeling in an underwater grotto of rock formations, stalagmites…and gaps through which we spy far deeper caverns. Jorge and Dave took deep breaths and swam under the cave roof looking for air pockets en route to swim from one underwater cavern to the next, emerging in an interior cave filled with bats. I accessed it via a steep ladder leading down through a narrow gap in the cave to the pool below. Marianne accidentally stuck her hand in a pile of batshit; it reeks…we laugh.
With Roberto out of town a few days we spent an evening with Adrianna, chef and Jorge’s wife. In Shambala’s kitchen Adrianna taught us sushi-making with sticky rice and packets of seaweed…which I was surprised was available in Tulum. Adrianna practiced her English whilst I fumbled through my few words of Spanish with Roc as translator. Sushi has become a craze here since our first visit… several sushi restaurants have opened in town. We’ve given Jorge a new catchphrase: “First there is me, second there is me and behind me is me”. He’s not an entirely selfish man but let’s say he has his priorities in his own particular order; he’d get us into trouble given the opportunity. We’ve made great friends in Mexico with Roberto, Jorge and Adrianna.
By bus from Chetumal to Guatemala.
We finally dragged ourselves away from our Tulum friends on Sunday 21st September….ready to start exploring again, I was bored of sand in my bed and damp salty clothes that never dried. Beach living isn’t for me.
We took the 10.30am Ado tourist bus 3 and a half hours from Tulum to Chetumal, an uneventful journey arriving at 2pm. Chetumal was closed up like a ghost town. We checked in to the Hotel Ucum, a motel of walkways and staircases; £10 for a sparse double room. Clean enough but lived in, it looked like a room from a movie set. Metal levered shutters at the windows and a strong metal door. We tried to sleep but the barking of local dogs and footsteps on metal stairs meant a disrupted night as the wobbling plastic fan feebly turned heat around the room.
Next day we found a local place for a late lunch. I ate the staple Mexican dish of chicken, rice and beans whilst Dave had another local favourite prawn cerviche. We wandered around the Mayan Museum which was pretty impressive, reproduction Mayan paintings depicting cultural stories. Walked the avenue of heroes to the seafront where a tatty funfair for kids was closed and a few street vendors hawked fried food. Young people were practicing marching band drums, the harsh rat-a-tat of sticks on skins echoed around the buildings of the seafront plaza. Walking back we noted the only places open other than a few convenience shops were the shoe shops, or ‘zapaterias’.
Nervous about the border crossings as we hadn’t had our Mexican tourist card stamped in advance, we took a 20 minute taxi drive to the Belize border to check out the situation with the frontier immigration. Army trucks with soldiers holding huge guns…but they were so smiley it was hard to be intimidated. It’s $20 to get your tourist card stamped before you leave Mexico and another $10 to be allowed to keep it in case you’re coming back in to the country within the allocated 180 days given at first entry. The friendliest immigration person we’d met confusingly took us to a window where another immigration officer stamped our passports as leaving Mexico today when in fact we were going early next morning. After trying to explain in our awful grasp of Spanish they told us to come back the next morning.
Dropping behind with the journal by several days…difficult to keep up with sporadic internet access in the middle of mountains. Anyway we had to get up at 4.30am to get to the Chetumal bus terminal on 22 Sept to catch a 6am bus to Flores in Guatemala…they wouldn’t sell tickets in advance. It was a Linear Dorada bus, full size but a lot more worn than the bus from Tulum. As we waited to board under flickering fluorescent lights the terminal started to fill with people disembarking from incoming buses from all over Mexico; local women dragging huge bags, men in traditional cowboy hats and huge belt-buckles. Our bus was almost empty but picked up more people en-route to Flores. Told it would be a 7 to 8 hour journey we calculated for longer allowing for the unpredictability of Central America time. We crossed the border for Belize 20 minutes later, concerns about our unstamped Mexican tourist cards unfounded, stamped at the border, charged $10 each to keep them so we could re-enter. Border immigration formalities concluded our bus pulled out…rolling through lush green countryside, by dilapidated wood houses, small bodegas and kids running in their school uniforms. The bus driver made frequent stops but being ignorant of the language we stayed on and watched as he jumped out to buy another banana or another tamale while our stomachs rumbled as the bus rumbled across Belize, towards Belize City where an English guy called Hadley jumped on and took a seat behind us. We chatted all the way across the next border in to Guatemala. And so another adventure begins…with another new friend.
The Travel Diarist 