Tulum 2024 - Kevin the Bike Rental Guy and Others

 One of the nicest people I met on the trip, most people I met were friendly, courteous and helpful but one that stood out, was the proprietor of the bike rental shop. I mentioned him in a previous post. His name was Kevin, which I found rather anglicized for Mexico, or Argentina for that matter, where he was born. He wore a genuine grin which never left his face. He shared with me the emotions of his pet parrot, the bird is apparently extremely protective and jealous, even of his wife. The parrot sits on it's perch outside the shop most days, not accustomed to flying the act wears him out quickly. He uses a hose, not directly but indirectly, to occasionally mist the bird who spreads out his wings to absorb the cooling water. They are like father and son. Our conversation, regarding truly nothing, lasted over half an hour. I found myself thinking what a delightful lunch or dinner guest he would make. 

Then there were Gustavo and Patrick, the two guys that run the small hotel. Kind, gracious, more than helpful with my struggle with the lost luggage. I could, and have, done worse with hotel guesthouse hosts. 

There were the smiling and attentive waitstaffs in restaurants, the young guy at the rock shop, who offered to hold my selections until I returned from looking at other options. The waitress at the restaurant I ate at during the Friday blackout, asking to ring my meal early since they didn't know how much longer they would have the capability to do so and explained the limited beverage options. When I returned the next day she recognized me and said "Today we have power. our full menu is available." I enjoyed a delicious, rich smoothie and a panini the size of my head. It made both lunch and dinner that day.

Encounters with the people that live and work in the places you visit can make or break a trip. This trip, for other reasons, was a little broken, they helped mend it.

Tulum 2024 - Life Experience

 Life, as I view it, is a series of experiences, some grand, some small, some under our control, others not. One morning I left my room and sitting on a stool in the courtyard heard the strains of Dave Brubeck's Take Five. I was transported, for a few moments, to that special place only certain pieces of music, certain artwork, certain plays or movies, certain sounds or sights can take us. The call of a bird can reach us on an almost primal level. Ocean waves can elicit either soothing solace or paralyzing fear. Thunderstorms can amaze the senses while simultaneously shaking our inner core.

Sitting in a cooling tub on the top deck of the hotel can relax, riding through a shanty town on dirt streets surrounded by poverty I experienced feelings of sympathy and compassion for those who live there as well as frustration and anger at those that allow it to happen. Good, bad, grand, minute, these are all part of the grander experience of life. 

Enjoying the food, I have never had a moment of culinary disappointment in Mexico, is an experience. Savoring the sharp, crisp tang of a good, dry white wine while dining al fresco in March is an experience, a part of the whole. 

Lost luggage is a negative experience. Working through it and solving the day to day problems it's disappearance caused, is a positive one, a reaffirming of my ingenuity and resilience. 

Hopefully there are many experiences in the future, I look forward to each of them and wonder what each of them may teach me.

Tulum 2024 - Not My Cup of Tea

 I have had the good fortune to travel extensively throughout the western hemisphere. Since I was a tween my parents were both teachers leaving us entire summers to sojourn. One summer we set out from California, where we lived at the time, and drove across the U.S., up the eastern seaboard, into southern Canada and back. I was perhaps 12, old enough to have memories of the sights we experienced. 

At 15 we struck out again, flying to Brussels and driving, without an itinerary, through Europe. It was 1973. We visited, among other places, the then eastern bloc countries of Bulgaria, Romania, my mother was a big fan of gothic horror, and the various countries that at the time were consolidated under Tito as Yugoslavia. While Yugoslavia had maintained a certain level of autonomy in those years, thanks to the political savvy of Tito, Bulgaria and Romania were still under heavy Soviet influence. I will forever be grateful to have experienced that moment in history, with due respect to the hardships of the people that lived there at that time. 

A friend of mine once described me as the most curious person she knew. Seeing the Coliseum, Eiffel Tower, the home of Anne Frank in Amsterdam, walking across the slick marble floor of the Parthenon at that young age excited my teenaged mind. It created a desire to see and learn more. For many of my adult years financial constraints prevented me from satisfying this curiosity in terms of travel. But that time is behind me and I can now, within limits, explore the world.

I do not regret my visit to Tulum, I have made it my motto to not regret anything in my life. Even hardship will endow you with knowledge and wisdom if you are open to receive it. The frustration with Tulum is the same frustration I had with Cancun, I flew there once on a buddy pass when my sister was a flight attendant, there is virtually nothing to see or do. On the trip to Cancun the high point was a day trip to Chicken Itza, which sparked  my interest in Mayan culture. In Tulum, with the exception of the ruins, doing nothing seems to be the point. I consider that pointless. It is fine for some but not for me. 

Tulum 2024 - The Ruins

My purpose on this trip was to visit the Mayan ruins at Tulum. It is my understanding that they are the only ruins adjacent to the sea. They have been a bucket list item of mine for years. 

I once again, despite it's behavior the day before, put my trust in GPS. I had to access it from the plaza due to the internet woes at the hotel. I bicycled down wide, loud roads awash in traffic, then continued through parking lots and past innumerable souvenir shops till I reached the entrance to the national park and then the ruins themselves. 

The sight as I stepped through the arched opening of the wall which surrounds the ruins left me breathless. On a summit overlooking the sea rises the most impressive of the ruins, the Castillo. Across a large plain are spread the remains of other structures, walls, columns, sometimes nothing more the a short line of rocks, the foundations of buildings long gone. The flowers were brilliant. A couple of iguanas scuttled about. I could feel the souls of  the people that had once populated this place. Their lives, their work, their worship.

Worship is born of curiosity. It is a trait that humans have possessed since our history began. Curiosity is what advances us, it gives us the drive to look beyond what we know and discover what we do not. It can be used to produce empathy, to try to understand what others are feeling and how we can relate to them as part of the human family. The ruins were once brightly painted. Humans also seem to share a desire for beauty, for the visual stimulation which activates and excites the imagination. 

The sun bleached gray and white of the ruins were juxtaposed against the blue of the sky and the ocean below. Waves crashed and eddied around a large rock which protruded from the sea just off shore. I gazed out over the water. I thought of the 16th century Spanish, sailors looking at the city on the cliff, as impressive as many in Europe at the time. I imagined the Mayans staring at the massive ships, their great sails filled with wind, moving towards the coast before retreating back to sea. I imagined the mix of curiosity and fear coming from both sides. The tangled thoughts and emotions emanating from contact with something previously unknown.  

Man is a creative and resourceful creature. The ruins of Tulum were built to be easy to defend. Upon first contact the Europeans thought of the Mayans as primitive yet they built great monuments, possessed an advanced knowledge and understanding of astronomy, developed a remarkably accurate calendar and had a hieroglyphic form of writing, most examples, unfortunately, destroyed by the Spanish. 

They had methods to clear the jungle and turn it into cropland. At other sites I have hiked back through thick foliage, once fields for food and flowers, to ruins now hidden deep within the jungle. I  have scaled pyramids and looked out over the scene beneath me. I have visited a salt trading site constructed next to an area of briny water. The water was placed in large cisterns on the waters edge. Once evaporated the remaining salt was gathered to be  used for the preservation of meat. 

Some will remark about the rituals involving human sacrifice practiced by the Mayans, turning a blind eye to the hanging and burning alive those accused of witchcraft and heresy in Europe at the time.  One of the reasons the Mayans were considered primitive was because they did not wear clothing. The area in which they lived can be incredibly hot and humid. I think of the Conquistadors, in their woolen clothes and metal armor and think "Who are the real fools in this game?"

 

 

Tulum 2024 - Internet Woes

 I awoke to discover there was still no internet. Several of us gathered around the table in the courtyard,  playing with our phones, frantically attempting  to connect, to no avail. During this a call came into the hotel manager asking me for an inventory of what was in my lost bag so they could electronically search for items that could be associated with me. There was a tag on the bag with my name, address and phone number, the tag is bright pink, it is from Eurorail,  apparently they felt that solution to locating the bag wouldn't be enough of a challenge. The number they gave me would not connect to Whatsapp, perhaps due to the spotty internet. I sent an email to the airline later in the day but to get it to go through we had to switch to another of the hotels wi fi codes and move to within about a foot of the router. 

Later in the evening I decided I would just lay in bed and watch t.v. which is when I discovered that they didn't work due to the blackout the previous day. I read, started with Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, he was a master of the adventure genre, later moving to The Further Adventures of Tom Sawyer, at least my vacation reads weren't pulp novels.

I wake on Sunday, still no internet. By turning off airplane mode and turning it back on again, I could get connected, for a moment. I learned to catch up on emails, messages, Facebook and news during meals when I could use the restaurant's wi fi. 

It was not that long ago that we didn't have instant connectivity with virtually the entire world. We communicated by speaking to one another. Today it is a world of texting, bots and websites. The world as adapted to depend on a single technology and when it is disrupted it is difficult for society to function.

Tulum 2024 - Blackout!

 After cooling off I returned to my room to nap, a luxury I allow myself in semi retirement, I woke about an hour later. There was an audible crackle as the light within my sight in the bathroom went out. I assumed a bulb had just burned out. I was wrong. When I attempted to turn on the lights in the main room, nothing happened. I was soon to discover that the entire plaza, and who knows what else, had suffered a blackout, the first of three during my stay. 

I left the hotel and walked through the plaza. restaurants were closing, the proprietors locking their doors. The taco place I had planned to eat at was still open, albeit with a limited drink menu as they specialize in smoothies, which require electricity. I was asked to pay in advance as they were concerned about the power to run credit card transactions were the  blackout to continue. As I finished my meal the crew was pulling plants indoors and stacking the tables and chairs. Power was restored a couple hours later sans internet connection in the hotel, which remained unavailable for the remainder of my stay. Since the t.v. carried streaming platforms only there was also no television during the rest of my time there. I had my Kindle, at least there was that. I read alot.......

Tulum 2024 - Apparently GPS Had a Nit to Pick

 The 2nd morning of my stay I rented a bike. I would have it for 3 days. It was the last one the rental store had available. It was to become integral to the impressions of Tulum I was to take home with me. 

My adventure began. I rode to the park I had discovered the day before encountering, along the way. an iguana, its chameleon camouflage making it blend in with the pebbled walkway. The same beautiful blue birds flited through the dense trees.

 I had seen a rock store on my trip to Chedraui the previous day and decided to check it out. GPS got me there without issue and I shopped a bit. I had to be cautious, whatever I purchased would have to fit in the gym bag I used as a carry on in case my luggage never caught up with me. Fortunately the gym bag was underpacked on the way in. 

I put the coordinates for the hotel into GPS and headed back, or so I thought. There are no real landmarks in Tulum. Much of what you see there looks like everything else you see there. Somehow GPS forgot to inform me of a soft right turn and I became, in a word, lost. I found myself at the coastline. I would have enjoyed the sight of the light blue sea and proliferation of pelicans had I not had the anxiety of not knowing where I was. I did appreciate the cool ocean breeze as it was getting to be early afternoon and the sun was becoming increasingly hot and the air growing thick with humidity. 

GPS led me on a 2 hour long loop tour that afternoon. I bike frequently during the summer so, once again, I was up to the challenge. I rode down dusty highways abutted by jungle on either side. There was sporadic construction of new apartments and resorts. The edges of the jungle were filled with litter and the greenery was gray with dust in the areas of construction. 

GPS led me through an area of dirt streets lined with shacks and dilapidated, sagging buildings. Some of the houses had water reservoirs on the top of them as I assume that running water was a luxury. It is an area, and a reality , that most tourists will never see, even though it is no more than a mile or so from their hotels. The extreme poverty, juxtaposed against the relative luxury of the resort area, was heart rending. The worst poverty I have ever witnessed was on the island of St Lucia. This came a close second. The poverty on St. Lucia I witnessed through the windows of a tour bus. This I was confronted with first hand, out in the open. Reflecting upon it later it brought me almost to tears. 

Somehow I ended up back in the hotel zone, where I started. GPS informed me of the soft right turn this time and I arrived at the hotel. 

Water dripped down the back of my legs from my sweat soaked shorts. I immediately went to one of the small rooftop pools and immersed myself in the cool water.