Writing again…
….Nov. ?? -Today I’m in Bacalar, and this is a true story-
Out the window of this bus I see the greenest land I can imagine. The sides of the highway are an unbroken wall of tropical trees and vines, concealing whatever secrets lie out here in the Mayan jungle.
Today Mike and I are traveling again, after spending the better part of the week in small tourist town called Tulum. We are currently exploring the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, a huge, flat wilderness of the densest jungle I’ve ever seen, on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
This place often reminds me of a more lush, hot, wet and tropical Florida, with much less industry as well. The weather can be staggering in the sun, with humidity so high it feels like you are underwater. Then the rains break loose for 5 minute and wreak havoc, I love to stand in it and feel its power. The night air is sublime.
Here is where the ancient Mayan people had an empire, and today it is still inhabited by the Mayans. But of course, in today’s empire these people are impoverished. It still seems like people around here live good lives though, close to the earth and with good food and family. The booming tourism industry is actually bringing a lot of money to the area and only growing the place more and more each year. So, nowadays the locals exploit their ancient ruins for hordes of tourists. 
We are being tourists!!
Most of the growth seems to be in the development of luxury hotels which line the beaches, and some of these properties are so ridiculously opulent that I think they are probably just installments from the cartel. The cartel or some equally corrupt organization.
Actually, I learned that the cartel government built the city of Cancun, which is at the northern end of this state, in 1974. Before that, Cancun was just a deserted, pristine island, the name of which means Snake’s Den in Mayan. The nearest town was population 120 native people. It was an idea for a resort city, truly a fake city, and today it feels like a strange combination of Miami and Las Vegas carved out of the middle of the jungle. A city of strangers the Mexicans call it, where people come just for the famous, never ending party and leave within a few days.
The beach in Cancun today is lined with turquoise and white high rise hotels just like you’d see in Florida, but what a glorious white sand beach it is…
Our first day here Mike and I spent playing in those glassy waves. Our flight arrived at 5am in Cancun and we walked through the sunrise to the beach. The weather was hot and the palm trees were fluttering and sparkling like they do in the Caribbean! To take a refreshing swim in the ocean at 7am is one of my favorite things, and what an exciting morning we were having.
The day continued to be exciting, the energy in Cancun is intense and we were just thrilled to be in the tropics. Our hostel was beautiful, with a balcony looking at the ocean and trapped among the high rises. We made friends with an Italian guy named Jacapo, and went with him that night for dinner and to explore the nightlife. We had dinner in the “downtown” which is a normal area mostly serving the people that live there, but then we decided to head to back to the “Hotelera” to see the party.
Immediately upon arriving we were intercepted by the hustlers. The hustle is more real here than I’ve ever seen. They insisted on guiding us around, to try and make us pay them for entrance to their strip clubs. They brought us inside to tour the place, where strippers were actually grabbing us and trying to seduce us to stay. One of these places had girls dancing totally naked. We didn’t stay in these places, and the minute we would leave another hustler would grab us for a tour of the next club. Have to admit that these free tours were pretty fun! I’ve truly never met people who were so good at forcing me to follow them I couldn’t believe it. For their sales they somehow take advantage of your emotions, they are your best friend until you won’t buy their product after which they become a hateful enemy.
Jacapo was looking for a deal to see the show at Coco Bongo and entrance to one of the outdoor bars with the biggest dancing party. I got very confused after the three different tours, we had to do a better job ignoring these people. But my head was spinning for a moment there. We paid $30 for the cover at a bar and then it was totally free drinks. Of course that’s what they want, is for everyone to get as drunk as possible.
It worked! We were dancing a lot to crazy music, there was balloons, there were nice people around, confetti shooting in the air. I drank excessively, and the show at Coco Bongo was like a Cirque du Soleil, with contortionists and very strange and dark as well. It was quite impressive.
The night was winding down at 3am, but maybe not for Mike and me. I’m not totally sure what happened. Both of us were extremely intoxicated. This has happened before- where we got into a fight while drunk, but never like this. Cancun style! We actually threw punches and went down into some plants with a fist fight. And truly, we realized later, this fight was over absolutely nothing.
He broke his glasses, we stopped fighting but still shouting at each other. Then of course… the cops intercepted us. I apologized, spoke some Spanish to them, they told me we would be arrested for 72 hours, or we could give them all the money in our wallets instead.
Mike was still very upset after, and I couldn’t calm him down. I supposed he felt pretty bad, he had lost his debit card earlier in the evening, he was blind without his glasses, and now had been robbed by the cops as well. I forgave him later, but he literally packed his bags from the hostel and walked away from me, to the airport. Decided in a moment to finally abandon this godforsaken (or god blessed) trip we’ve been on for so many months and years together.
The night ended for me in an extreme emotional state with tears.
After a couple hours sleep I woke panicked and confused. It took me a while to realize but Mike had no money, the airport was 30 miles away, and he had no way to get money either. He wouldn’t be able to get too far without some help. Im sure he was dehydrated too, with no free access to clean water. He messaged me at some point in the morning and apologized for what had happened, saying he didn’t want to abandon our trip. Of course not! Mexico is amazing!! And we have a lot to accomplish out here…
This fight was my fault too and we had absolutely no problem forgiving each other. It was very stupid. He had survived the painful morning by drinking coconuts after falling asleep in some golf club resort.
Ok, so, with some good advice, the next step was to leave Cancun. Umm… definitely! We stayed the night, it was Halloween, and totally avoided any kind of party haha! The next day we caught a bus to Tulum.
Upon arriving, we wanted to camp on the beach. So, we went on a long walk from the town center to the beach. Again, it was lined with hotels, and here was a big fence blocking public access to the shore for the most part. There was nowhere at all possible for free camping on some open coastline, or even in mangroves. I thought the town would have more wilderness, and was very disappointed and almost angry about the development, but trying to just go with the flow. The problem was, the developments went on for far too many miles to walk to the outskirts of them for camping.
We finally gave up that idea and caught a taxi a short ways to a secret little spot called Camping Chavez! Nestled between the hotels, in a little alley of beach, there was a small campground. It was run by a slender, old Iranian dude who talked with a slow drawl, and his cat.
We ended up staying two nights there in our hammocks under a thatched grass roof, which was very nice to have when the rain broke in epic downpours. We stood in the ocean and felt the tropical rain, watching the lightning and hearing awesome thunder.
It was in that area we visited our first cenote. A cenote is a sinkhole in the tropical limestone, that fills with crystal clear pure water. There are over 6000 in the Yucatan, and they are found nowhere else in the world. These are the secret oasises that hide in the jungle. The first one we went into was within mangroves, and with no masks for diving, it was spooky how deep the thing was. I read about cenotes which can be up to 60 kilometers deep! Interconnected passageways in the caves which can go for incredible distances and depths.
We swam out into it, a flamingo flew over head. We saw the perfectly circular pool after turning a corner through the mangroves. Then we saw a bunch of bubbles in the far end… We said, ‘what is that’…? Suddenly the bubbles were swimming fast towards us!! Ahh! It was a cenote monster. We swam the opposite direction in a total panic, unable to see what was chasing us! A crocodile perhaps? We got out of that thing.
We made great friends at Camping Chavez and eventually the Iranian guy gave us a ride to town where we stayed 3 more nights in a hostel. We went and explored two more cenotes, the Grand Cenote which was kind of a tourist trap, but extremely beautiful in a bat cave where you could dive among the stalactites. Then the Jardin Del Eden (very hard to pronounce in Spanish). This one was my favorite. It was crystal clear with greenish turquoise water and underwater rocks and caves to dive among. We had bought masks and snorkels by now. There were also cliffs to jump off, and amazing tropical fish and birds, also a poisonous snake… animals here I’ve never seen before.
We made a lot of friends in Tulum at the cool Hostel Sheck, and I’ve been really enjoying practicing my Spanish. After about 5 days we left Tulum with warm hearts from this very touristic hippy party town. This brings us to where I sit today, on a hostel balcony drinking coffee this morning in a town called Bacalar.
If anyone ever tells you Mexico is dangerous they have obviously never been to Bacalar. Actually, I think this is just a blanket statement to say Mexico is dangerous; it is a huge country! (I now find this to be an ignorant and even racist statement.) Every country has its dangerous places. Bacalar is the most tranquil, most lovely town I’ve ever been to.
It sits on the shore of the Laguna de Siete Colores. A huge lake which looks like an ocean bay, with vibrant aquamarine waters. However, it’s fresh water. It is a very calm, clean lake and swimming in it can induce a trance. We will leave here today I think, and just so you know, our goal is to go to Belize and we are searching for a sailboat to buy. I still have no idea if it is possible!
There’s not much happening on the streets of Bacalar, it is very clean with lots of flowers. The food is wonderful. This hostel we are staying in is the cutest little beach shack I can imagine with gorgeous handmade furniture, and an English bulldog walking around named Morgan! If people knew that they could sell their house in the US, and for a fraction of the price buy a much nicer house in Mexico, eat better, and never have to work again… I think a lot of people would be moving south!
For now Mexico is left to the people who have been here for generations, and the tourists who are savvy enough to realize they can live here indefinitely for extremely cheap. The number of tourists is growing fast, taking advantage of our corrupt system which keeps these kind hearted Mexicans working for $5 a day, riding 16 deep in a truck bed to work at a hotel which charges literally $10,000 a night to luxury US tourists. Our society is one of slavery, and the darker side of things can be so obvious to me and so sad. But the wilderness is magic, and when you travel you can’t avoid but seeing the magic firsthand.
I’ll try to keep posting updates on what happens to me out here… 🙂 <3
