Wil's Trip to Tulum

Summary

I stayed at the Cabanas Santa Fe, primarily a campground/hangout for divers interested in the barrier reef along this coast, and right next to the Tulum archeological site (ruins of an ancient Mayan city). My cabana is a simple 10x10 foot cabin of wooden poles with a palapa (roof of thatched palm leaves), so the wind blows through but the rain stays out. I paid extra for a bed (60 pesos per night, about US $8.50) but many residents use hammocks in their cabanas, or even hang a hammock between two palm trees on the beach. Vendors cruise by several times a day, with armloads of hammocks, constantly offering to sell you one.

The people who stay here are an interesting mix of international students, Rastafarian gypsies, and diving aficionados. The pace is leisurely, the beach is gorgeous, and the food is cheap and filling.

Mellow reggae or mariachi music plays at the cantina/bar/restaurant. Your order your food and drink at the bar, and when it's ready they yell your name, so you can pick it up. This caused some confusion because my name is difficult for the locals to pronounce. The first couple of times, they gravitated toward "Wili" which would have been okay except that there was also a "Bili" staying there, and the two usually got pronounced alike. So I used "Wilo" which usually evoked a smile or a double take, but got me my food. I can only guess that wilo is a slang term or something similar. (If anyone can tell me whether it means "fudge packer" or something, please let me know.)

Anyway, I got fed well on vegetarian omelets, quesadillas, tortas, nachos, and cerveza (beer). Generally it's spice-it-yourself from a big bowl of salsa. The diet is substantially richer and lower bulk that I'm used to, but I had only mild no-flo (constipation). The campground has flush toilets and showers, and even a little hand laundry. Water and electricity come from local sources (not on the grid), and supply of both is a bit irregular but not a big problem.

Saturday, 20 January 1996
3:30 am Waiting to board the plane

I rode through the brand-new Williams Tunnel on the way here. It's beautiful, although access is lousy so far (it'll be several years before the access ramps and stuff are straightened out). A chatty and cheery cab driver can make all the difference.

6:00 Liftoff, in the greying dawn.

Lack of head support is undoubtedly an effective torture technique. I am just too big. I should get one of those neck pillow things.

Breakfast omelet & water. Weather is variable, bursts of rain, some sun. Tai chi and lok hup on the beach went okay, sand & sun glare is tough, and the bikinis (or lack thereof) make for distraction.

The beach is preternaturally beautiful, except for frequent plastic garbage. Pinkish coral sand, quite fine, sticks to the skin like a coat of paint. In the wash of the waves, it roils and churns, making patterns like miso soup. The vegetation is a kind of scrub jungle, dwarf palms and succulent random things. Lots of coconuts and bamboo in the wrack. The water is an indescribably vivid aquamarine in the shallows, shading to rich indigo in the deeps. But the smell, the smell is the same ripe funk of a Cape Cod low tide, tweaking me with homesickness for a bittersweet moment.

Yesterday was, um, interesting. Evening time, the restaurant gets quite lively, including a number of distinctly unsavory looking local types. Mark says four people in two days have had their stuff taken out of their locked cabanas, and when they told the management that they intended to call the police, staffers told them where to find their stuff -- minus the money! This makes me rather uncomfortable. I borrowed a combination lock from Tony & Sue and put it on my cabana, in addition to their padlock, and am carrying the essentials (money, travelers cheques, passport, return ticket) in my pouch. So they can only get my camera and walkman. Still, it's a rotten feeling.

[Editor's note: This was only the scene for the first night, which was Saturday night and the locals' big night out. Things were much more mellow the rest of the time.]

(Mark is another Yank who's been here for a couple days already, a professional mechanic for a mountain bike team. Nice guy, with experience doing this kind of traveling. He's in a tent, and has buried all his valuables in the sand.)

Swung by Don Armando's to look for Polyamethyst people. No soap. So I got my didjeridu and hooked up with the gang of drummers in the big cabana. An okay jam. They were friendly and interested (they all loved the PVC didji) but the drumming was firmly in the bada-bada zone, Grupel Dome style. I offered a couple of songs & rhythms, which they liked but couldn't hold very long. Left early, and they pumped and pounded long into the night.

Wild dreams, which I can't remember except that they were set here at the cabanas, and featured a major bug bite on my right deltoid (where the muscle is a bit strained). Hm.

Now, about 10:00, weather is still overcast, looks like it's thinking about rain but hasn't made up its mind.

Sunday early afternoon

Sunday, late afternoon ~ 5:00 PM

The Stray Dogs appeared just as I was writing the last entry. It was so good to see them! Although all the cabanas were full at all the places, they rolled right in and scored a fine two-bed unit on the beach, with its own toilet, and windows! They got some kinda mojo workin'!

We had dinner at Don Armando's, which is nicer than Santa Fe (a bit more money, significantly smaller portions) and sat on the beach. Mescal shooters and topless dancing on the beach set a fine vacation mood. Jen was not feeling too well, and Jeffree had a bit more beer than he was accustomed to, so the cuddle puddle turned into mostly Lilly and me.

After checking with them, Lilly and I went to my cabana (where my condoms were). Although I wasn't fully "on," she certainly was, and we have a very nice sharing time. The light coming through the paling wall striped her body like a lithe little tiger. She is very dear and caring, as well as extremely sexy! How nice to be able to hold her and grow closer. She helped fill me in on what's up with Jen and Jeffree, tambien.

Sleeping was okay but got chilly, as I said.

Monday night

When we returned, it was full midday sun and hot enough that I took siesta for a couple hours. Jeffree swam out to the reef.

Twilight walk on the beach, seeing the fantastic new moon lying on its back next to Venus -- even the moon is taking it easy here! Listened to Thomas, an older hippie down the beach, for a while (reminds me so much of Jimi).

Tuesday afternoon, dinner time

So anyway, after a nice interlude of partying with all the people I knew at Santa Fe, I got my didjeridu and went to la cooperativa (a local fisherman's coop, with a fleet of boats on the beach) to Klaus's going away jam. In contrast to the hyperactive Americans, the Europeans were quite skilled musicians, reasonably good listeners, and although they had little knowledge of West African rhythms, they were interested in learning, so I taught them several. Klaus had a DAT recorder, so it is all immortalized in eternal bits (much more permanent than the other classes I've taught!) They were good, picking stuff up on the drum reasonably well, but weren't much into the songs, and not into learning dance at all. (Once again, only men drumming and only women dancing. Oh well.)

I did my best to keep up on the didji, but my lips gave out before too long. I played rainstick and clapped, etc., for a while longer, but it was getting pretty late, and a few beers took their toll, so I walked home on the beach. Very dark (after moonset), with cascades of stars like diamonds on black velvet. Orion lies on his side in the west, and the Big Dipper is completely upside down, with Polaris very low on the northern horizon. The Santa Fe cantina was completely shut down when I returned, which is definitely a first!

There are sacbeoob (in Maya, "white roads," singular sacbe), raised roadways in the jungle, going straight to Chichen Itza (100 km, or 60 miles) and other sites. Raised to keep them dry in the rainy season. Sergio, our guide, says Maya explorers recently travel them (with machete in hand) I guess to prove they are effective travel routes.

There are three major pyramids. The pyramid of Chac (the rain god) is closest to the entrance, and contains several burial chambers of noble officials which have been excavated; there are blocked doorways awaiting further excavation, may contain the tombs of kings. Exciting! (The pyramids were built in layers, every 52 years, enclosing and enlarging the former structure, so the deepest tombs are the oldest and probably the most prestigious.

Jeffree and I climbed the Chac pyramid almost all the way, but it turned out there was a Mayan family holding a ceremony at the summit, so we didn't disturb them (father, mother, adolescent boy). Sergio tells us that reclamation of the sacred sites by the Maya is a hot issue, and prompting much of the insurrection in Chiapas. They chanted long and slow "Chaaaaac tloo me, Chaaaaaac tloo me" and much more, very hypnotic and om-like. I did not photograph or record this because I felt it would be disrespectful (also because I forgot the microphone).

2 km walk to the Great Pyramid (of the Honey God). At 42 m high, it is the tallest structure in the Yucatan. The steps are steep and irregular, and the climb is enough to take the breath away (I heard someone say "el Stairmaster grande"). Once up there, the view will really take the breath away -- high up above the jungle, majestic and vertigo-inducing. There's a little temple at the top, cool inside but mouldy sticky walls! Ick! Little frescoes and relief carvings of the Descending God along the top. I made a prayer and left a little stone on the altar.

Last night I walked to the southern end of the beach at dusk, kicking amid the wrack and seaweed, and met a bird that looked like a brown egret. There's a neat little campsite on the bluff overlooking this end of the beach, accessible to the road but quite private. I must remember this; there's a sandy turnout opposite a pile of rocks, at the northern edge of a kind of bowl in the forest. Ideal idyll for a tryst or camp.

Well now! The last two days have been so full that I'm rather behind in my writing. Let's see, what else to say about Coba? I didn't write about the Painted Pyramid, with nicely preserved frescoes along the temple frieze, many beautiful colors showing faces of nobility and hieroglyphs. (The Maya paint only on plaster, never on stone, so the green coloring I saw in Tulum must be mould.)

After returning from the Coba ruins, we all went for a fine swim back at the home base. (We met Sharon, from New York, there; I was surprised to see a single, attractive woman traveling alone; it's certainly possible.)

Dinner with tequila and cerveza with Tony & Sue, a fine time. Although the Dogs expressed interest in going to Klaus's encore going away party (yup, he didn't leave Tuesday as originally planned), they must have been pooped because they all went off and crashed.

So I went alone. A small and much mellower gathering this time around, just Klaus and a couple friends; Steve, the Irish Rastafarian, and a couple local guys. Nice sweet music, with lots of give and take, lots of listening. Steve's girl danced a bit, and I danced a lot. Klaus said that I am the most black white man he's ever met; what a compliment! Didn't stay too late there, sacked out while Orion was still high.

Wednesday morning the girls were sick -- oh no! I can't figure anything that they ate or drank that Jeffree and I didn't. We got them water and a fruit plate, but there's really nothing else to do but let them go through it.

So Jeffree and I decided to go to Xel-Ha ("shell-ha" in Maya "clear water"), billed as the world's largest aquarium, an extended system of fresh- and salt-water cenotes (sinkholes). Planning ahead, I rented snorkeling gear at the Santa Fe dive shop. Only 30 pesos, but they take your passport for security (!) but since they keep it in the same box as their own money, I figured they'd take good care of it.

Xel-Ha is an easy drive north of Tulum, but the admission is a hefty 70 pesos (US $10.00)! We agreed that the place has become Cancunized. Loads of clueless tourists wandering around, looking vaguely drugged as if on Valium and cheap liquor. Tony and Sue came along with us, Tony rented his gear there (42 pesos). Sue didn't seem to want to swim, so she stayed with our stuff.

The snorkeling is great fun. Fantastic coral shapes, overhangs, tunnels and caves to explore. I pressed into some dark and narrow places, too small to turn around in; but usually there's a way through or a place to turn around, and if not, can back paddle with my hands like a fat parrotfish. I did get scraped up on the coral a couple times. Holding breath is not a problem, as it's rarely deeper than 3 meters or a longer tunnel than 5-6 meters.

And such fish! Swirling constellations of tiny neon colored guppie things, cruising pipefish with their long needle-thin noses, riots of angelfish and other types too numerous to count. The angelfish, usually striped yellow and black, have a display/territory thing they do, scooting towards you flapping their pectoral fins, then darting away. My favorite are the parrotfish, big (1 meter or so, like a big dog) and fat, and colored the most brilliant orange, green and purple, Day-Glo bright, sort of like Californians. They amble along with their pectorals, beaks gaping open, and occasionally chomping on the coral. The water is constantly alive with the cracking and crunching sounds of their osseous repast.

I saw several stingrays, sliver and blue, maybe 5 feet long (body with wings is a circle 2-3 feet across, and a long thin tail with the stinger about halfway down). They ripple along the bottom, with angelfish in attendance, then find a sandy place to shuffle into and blow sand from their gills to cover themselves.

There are schools of big pelagic (free-swimming) fish, who are not interested in the reefs. They can be a bit unnerving to come upon; because of the tunnel vision enforced by the mask, you don't see them until you're suddenly surrounded by goat-size creatures with heavy jaws like a bulldog, Some have yellow sickle tails (pompano?) and others fat flat tails. I saw lone barracuda, hanging almost motionless near the bottom, silvery white with big black empty eyes like a shark, slowly working their toothy underslung jaws. There was one chunky critter near the ocean entrance, brown and mottled, maybe a gar. Eerie, hanging just below the surface.

We all came back from this excursion fairly burned, because they don't allow sunscreen in the park (there's an attendant at the gate, where you must check your sunscreen). And rightly so, because the water (especially in the sheltered inlets) is thick with oily layers of emulsified goo. In places it almost totally obscured what I was trying to look at. Yuk! We wore T shirts in the water, but the backs of legs and arms got mighty crispy.

Upon returning, we found the girls still pretty out of it, bored from being indoors but too weak and nauseous to go anywhere. So we hung out and chatted for a while. Jeffree and I ate dinner at Don Armando's, with bring-it-yourself red wine. I hurt my neck when a tiny red bikini went by. Damn, but the women are beautiful here! Sultry, taut, and nubile! I probably just don't get out enough.

Jeffree and Lilly ordered too much food at Don Armando's, so they sent Jen to get me on the beach, and I put clothes on and disposed handily of the excess. Then nachos y cerveza, with mescal shooters. Doesn't get much better than this.

Another beautiful sunset, with twilight beach walk and satellite watching. Dogs are drowsy again, so I went to la cabana grande and jammed with Steve (the Irish Rastafarian) and Kip (a Kiwi dive bum) who were there with a gaggle of Italian girls, and some Dutch couples. Stellar musical improvisation, with my stuff shading heavily toward Tuvan overtone melodies. Kip is an excellent didjeridu player! An English bloke who sells bonsai trees is also pretty good. Great conversation and fine music, and cervezas grandes; we were all falling over by the end of the night!

Next morning (Friday) the girls came dancing around me during tai chi practice, which was not only funny, but in imitating me they gave me a mirror to see what I was doing wrong (letting hands go along for the ride, without connection). So that was fine!

Another lazy day, not doing much besides lying around on the beach and taking a couple pictures (sunrise primarily).

Last night I had farewell dinner with the Dogs at Don Armando's. We splurged on the special, shrimps in garlic and butter, piles of super-spicy nachos, and Coronas. Very good, but extremely fatty and rich, loaded with green chilies. Not too surprising I had to do an emergency vent. (The telltale sign is that full & unsettled feeling in the bowl of the pelvis. Don't get too far from a toilet.)

Talking afterwards, turns out Lilly and Jeffree are both interested in my old SF reviews. Note to self -- see if I can find them and post them.

Yesterday's highlight was definitely my languorous siesta with Jen, which I was so looking forward to! She is a dear, and it felt wonderful to hold her close in the ocean breeze and the gentle wash of the surf. Yum.

In other news, two of the German girls have been really friendly. So much so that I finally got around to wondering if one of both of them was trying to pick me up. (The sun shines over Marblehead.) I never know what to do in these situations, be cool or what. It would be a lot easier if we wore little signs or something. Anyway, nothing happened other than some nice smiles and conversation. No complaints.

So anyway, I arranged with a cab to pick me up this morning, by checking in with him yesterday and arranging to meet him at El Mirador parking lot (not at the taxi stand, where he would have competition). It wasn't a reservation, but he was so hot for the fare that I figured if he didn't show, there would be plenty of others at the taxi stand.

So this morning I watched one last dawn over the Caribbean, packed my stuff, and said good-by to the drowsy Dogs. (They sure do sleep a lot! Is it just vacation, or just me being different?)

Antonio waiting for me (if you know much about Mexican time, this is impressive). He was as cheery and chatty as most American cabbies. He asked about my vacation, proudly pointed out his home on the beach north of Tulum, mentioned that he'd only had two beers so far that morning (7:00 am) and did I want to stop for a couple? I politely refused -- just say no to getting drunk so early that last night's hangover hasn't really hit its stride yet. (This is a joke, I never had a hangover in Mexico.)

Cattle drive onto the plane, after a couple gate changes, delays, and no announcement when they finally figure out what they want us to do. At least all the booze is complimentary. Very Mexican. The return flight is uneventful, although landing in cold rainy Boston feels a bit like being sentenced to Purgatory. Once again, customs is theoretical; they take a look at my declaration card and wave me through without stopping. No worries.

That's all, folks. It was kinda weird waking up this morning without the bird songs and the sound of the waves. But it's very nice to have access to a hot shower and a computer again. Hasta la vista!