Alive and Long Winded

I wrote this a couple of days ago and had to save it because I couldn't sign in to my blog. This is the one problem with having your travel journal be on a computer...relying on computers. Anyways...


Passing time waiting for yet another bus...I´m like a professional rider now, with all of my gear I need at hand. Not that that was something I ever aspired to be, but it´s always good to add a couple more tricks to the bag. It´s been a long time since I´ve written, which makes me almost anxious, since this is my travel diary, minus a few thoughts too personal to be posted on the internet. I think it´s been a week since I´ve written, and, of course, so much has happened.

I am in Tulum, waiting for the bus to Chetumal, on the border of Belize. I am going to cross into Belize this afternoon, and am trying to figure out if I´d like to stay a couple of days, or head straight to Tikal, in Guatemala. Talking to people all I hear is that Belize is really expensive and not so great anymore. It´s hard not to believe it after being over here on the Caribbean coast for a couple of days. I´ve actually had an amazing last couple of days, but the area itself here...not so awesome.

I left San Cristobal last Sunday (I think) and headed down to Palenque, to see the ruins. Louise had gone a couple of days ahead of me, and I stayed to go to the Sunidero Canyon, which was beautiful. It´s a river that runs through this canyon with 3000 foot high walls, and gorgeous dramatic scenery. When you arrive in Palenque, most everyone leaves town immediately to go an area called El Panchan, which is used as a base to visit the ruins and to go see other nearby sights, like the tour of waterfalls in the area. El Panchan is itself is charming, but odd at the same time. All it really is is an area for travelers and backpackers. There´s no town, just lots of guesthouses and a couple of restaurants, which is great for a few days while you´re busy. Yet there´s quite a few people, including this couple we met from Colorado Springs, who have decided it is heaven on earth, and have taken up residence there. They told us that they came there, and they just fell in love with it and can´t imagine leaving. Such a strange existence, living all the time with people who are only stopping through. It would just seem like life never really slowed down or stopped. I suppose that IS what they like about it. Hmmm.

Anyways, from there, we spent one day exploring the ruins, and another day doing the waterfall tour of the big three waterfalls in the area. The ruins, are, of course, interesting, but here I´m going to have to sound like a bad traveler and say that they don´t do all that much for me. The Palenque ruins were a lot like the double edged sword throughout most of Mexico so far: as this country develops, which is of course good for the people who live here, I think maybe it loses some of it´s rustic charm along the way. Being in Palenque, I really felt like I was at some ruins in...America. Everything was roped off (I get it, of course, for conservation), and the enormous bathroooms made to serve the 5000 people that visit everyday were made to fit into the feel of the ruins, with Mayan statues outside of them...it felt kind of like Disneyland. Still, of course, they are amazing, and it´s fascinating to walk along the grounds and do your best to imagine what it must have been like at the height of their glory. It made me think about what does interest me as far as architecture and communities go. I realized that what really does it for me is seeing what people are building for the future. I would have gone far out of my way to look at beautiful new architecture that someone had created and especially something that was based on people living together in new and interesting ways that work. Something beautiful and relevant to now and where we are heading. While I think it´s really interesting to see what people created a thousand years ago, I find it far more fascinating to see what man these days, in these crazy times, is capable of. Seeing ruins and churches kind of reminds me of reading classic books. I see the point of understanding the past, and can generally appreciate them, yet they´re lacking a relevance to now, and something about that missing piece loses me a little bit. Bad traveler.

The next day we went on a crowded van ride through twisty turny roads and saw the three waterfalls in the area. At one of the stops, there was this huge rope bridge that spans the length of the lake it`s over, Agau Clara. Everyone files out of their vans, and as one group (myself included) practically make a run for the bridge, which is up a steep path. I have no idea why this is, but some crazy mentality takes over. I tried to make a video that didn´t work out, and I really wish it had, because it´s ridiculous. This bridge looks like something from Indiana Jones or some other movie, where halfway across the whole thing starts to fall apart. As we walked across, I started to notice how rotten it was, and how many half missing boards there were, leading me to wonder what had happened when someone was standing on it and it broke. Apparently everyone else had the same thoughts, because all of a sudden there was about 50 people all standing in the middle of the bridge while it swayed *really* crazily, and everyone was kind of half laughing and half screaming and grabbing onto the sides of the bridge. The 9 year old with us, Sienna, had the best advice when she said "let´s just not think about it". It was a situation where you generally assume noone is going to die, yet for a moment a clear headline flashed through my brain about stupid tourists falling to their death in a freak accident, which really did seem possible...the locals who watch this 5 times a day must think we´re all crazy. Afterwards we went to Agua Azul, an enormous set of cascading waterfalls that have a naturally occurring mineral in them that turns them perfectly turquoise. Best of all, after climbing to the very top, there´s this clean, beautiful pool to swim in, with a rope swing! I love a rope swing so much. A good one is on my personal top 10 I think. We swam around and played for a while, with all of these fun people we`d been with all day. I felt like a new person afterwards. So clean and refreshed. It was great.

That night we took the hellish night bus to Tulum (see poem below for all I have to say about that). We arrived at 7 a.m. and wandered around looking for a place to stay for 2 hours! Way too early and too long a bus ride to be doing that. Gosh was I grumpy! The thing was, in the short amount of time since my friends have been here, or since the guidebook was written, Tulum has changed drastically! Every place we checked out to stay was so expensive and really not nice. We did finally find a very rustic (which is fine) palapa on the beach. The beach itself is truly beautiful here, and if I ever take the time to post pictures, they´re pretty breathtaking. The sand is white and powder fine, and when walking in the surf, it´s literally like silk underneath your feet. The water is an almost unreal turqoise fading out to darker shades, and the sky is a robin´s egg blue that in some places is almost undistinguishable from the water. There are palm trees dotting the beach, and the whole thing is just like a postcard. It´s quite magical, and you can´t help but feel lucky to be there. Except (and geez I sound cynical) that all of this beauty brings SO much development...there were so many people that it was like being at a resort. And, again, like being in America. I felt like I was in California or Florida...we stayed one night here, and had such a great night. We didn't know there was going to be a lunar eclipse somehow, and walked out of our cabana after a nap to see the moon about half eclipsed. We walked down to the beach, and it was this gorgeous night. Really windy, but warm and the palm trees were blowing in the breeze. We walked down by the beach bar, which was playing Dark Side of the Moon, and then sat on a sand dune and watched the moon eclipse. I can't think of a place that I'd rather have been than sitting by the ocean watching the moon.

The next day, in search of beaches that weren't Tulum, we took a van ride to this small fishing village called Punta Allen, which is about 40 kilometers south of Tulum, but a 2 hour van ride down this bumpy road. Getting there was like a breath of fresh air compared to Tulum. The beach was beautiful and so quiet and was much more what we were looking for. Kind of a funny town though...The first day, we had lunch with Ed and Sully, and then later met Ron and Dave. If you can't guess, these would be the names of all of the retired old American me who are living out here for the winter. Apparently, it is some of the best fly fishing in the whole world, and consequentially, has attracted a very large group of old men who have found heaven on earth. They were really friendly, but we spent a lot of time giggling about it.

The scene here was definitely "escape from Playa del Carmen and Tulum" and it was an interesting assortment of people. We met this great Canadian couple that had left their 5 star hotel in Playa to come find something more real, and this guy Tony from Spain. The 5 of us ended up going on a day long boat trip around the islands. We saw dolphins that swam around our boat and were jumping through the water beside us, which was so exciting! We circled through mangroves and saw some really cool and interesting pelicans and flourescent pink spoonbills, and a crocodile or two (terrifying), and spent an afternoon eating fantastic seafood and drinking beer with them. We never would have met them, as we are doing such different trips, and it was fun to hang out with them.

The next morning, we had to catch a 5 a.m. (Gosh!) collectivo out over the bumpy roads into Tulum, where I (sob!) said goodbye to Louise. I didn't think I was going to, but I shed a few tears when I walked away. I had so much fun with her over our two weeks together. She was so funny and silly, but at the same time, we spent a lot of time discussing important parts of our lives, and I really learned a lot and gained so many insights from her. She is also very inspiring to me in all of the indepedent travel she has done, and how strong she is...in some ways I don't know how I would have done my first weeks of my own travel without her. She lent me a strength that I really needed while missing home and getting my own travel legs, and made everything light and fun, when my head wanted to attach a significance to it unnecessarily. She talked about her trip being divided up into Before Kira, During Kira and After Kira, and mine has definitely been the same so far. I'm feeling so much better about being on my own, and I think a big part of it due to my time spent with her...

Okay, time to catch the bus to Chetumal...