OR, FINALLY I CATCH A BREAK ON MY ROAD TRIP OF ARCHAEOLOGY.
A week long road trip was hell and heaven. Mostly hell but the bits that were heaven were sublime. It all would be heaven if they hadn’t imposed such restrictions where they were’t needed. Seems there is no middle ground here but I love it just the same.
Alert: I’m working under duress with internet on and off more times than a tarts knickers! (excuse me if this old saying is offensive!) I will go on to publish and correct it all later! IN THE HOWLING WIND AND RAIN DROPS THAT THREATEN MY GEAR EVEN BELOW THE THATCHED ROOF I WILL SAY TATA FOR THE MOMENT! That’s all folks!
OR, I JUST HAD TO GO BACK BUT WHAT A DRAMA GETTING ORGANISED!
Internet really playing up will add more pics later! One of the things that happens off grid!
Love the name!
The bus ride back was fast, only the three hours, but I was glum. Although I knew it was just one week in Tulum I had finally found my groove in this small paradise. The journey itself was great because it leaves at eight in the morning, no hanging around and great light to take pictures. Upon reaching the hotel side of Tulum though, my depression deepened. Plastic loud tourists milling around and all the trappings that go with under a thin veil of being very ethnic.
Collectivo with bananas and food as cargo with the passengers.
As soon as I arrived in Tulum my ears were assaulted by noise. I was so used to crashing waves and wind that to hear all these fucking cars and lorries, loudspeakers of vendors of gas, and fruit and veg, and other shite that I freaked as I got off the collectivo. Also a new thing, police loudspeakers about covid and masks. This just felt hostile and I felt really low.
For all the inconveniences of living on the edge of society it’s a whole world of difference if you’ve been used to be a lone wolf for a while. I sit here back in Punta Allen another time and although there’s no bloody WiFi at the moment because it’s ‘windy’ I still am blessed to be here and just writing this up in ‘word’ to copy to blog later.
Pain throughout the night. I had definitely set back my recovery but what to do? More painkillers and sedatives, a tormented sleep only to get up to open the windows in the night after the AC went off.
When I staggered out of my room in the morning the beauty of the place really dawned on me I had only seen the little twinkling lights the night before and it all looked disconnected and really quite scary.
Punta Allen is an unspoilt village with only very transient tourists passing through. It’s a fishing village and an amazing microcosm. I presume they have been hit by these times but I doubt people really stay here it’s more for the fishing and visiting the Biosphere Sian Ka’an where they have a huge variety of flora and fauna including jaguars if you’re very lucky. It’s at the end of the Boca Paila Peninsula. On that fifty km of rough dirt track down there, live around 500 salty souls.
Arriving at family hotel was a stroke of the best luck. It’s such a beautiful place and is appointed twenty paces from the white beach front. David the owner and Sonia have taken good care of me which would never have happened in the more impersonal places here. I was in poor shape but I extended my stay because, well, I felt as if this was the place to recuperate both body and soul. I didn’t want to leave and the huge bonus of love from the doggy too has really made the difference between just having a place to rest your head, and having a caring sort of family. They have massage here and a kayak if you fancy going out on the crazy beautiful aquamarine sea. Indeed someone said in a review that the massage was ‘magical, cosmic and ancestral’. Can’t really get a better review! I just wanted to tell you about this place because sometimes in life, and especially when you’re a damaged old bird travelling solo, you need the milk of human kindness. Sonia also will also cook some tasty food if you preorder.
OR, JUST THE USUAL SHIT FROM A CRASHING AND BASHING OLD BIRD.
Well folks I’ve gone and done it again.
In my wild enthusiasm to have a fresh start and go on a health kick on Sunday, after having, let’s say, run riot with sangria popsicles I crashed and burned immediately upon awakening. I got up and went to throw last nights soup down the loo preparing for a house clean before my trip to Punta Allen the following day. I sped back past my bed catching my toes on the bed leg that rather protrudes, and went crashing down really hard on my left wrist and then knees, elbows and hip, whilst, I might say holding the fucking soup pan aloft in my right hand. Now this weird automatic reaction I have noted before, for some reason you protect what you’re holding at the great cost of bodily harm. I’ve done this many times in a fit of the clumsies.
Ow and ow.
Now you might be saying that it’s my fault, but I promise you that normally when I crash and burn it’s due to lack of concentration and not the demon drink. This is why I keep banging on to you old birds especially, to go slow and concentrate on missions whether they be climbing ruins or doing the fucking dishes at home. This more haste less speed Rebecca had a stupid household accident and an avoidable one. This was the same dumb stupidity when I broke my foot in Mexico stumbling on the hotel bathroom step taking my dry clothes with speed to my suitcase. True the step was high but it was because i was planning other stuff in my head and my spacial awareness flew out the window as it does.
The mantra here in Punta Allen
As I sit here and write this from the paradise that is Punta Allen, looking gloomily at my fluorescent blue bandaged hand and wrist, I can recall it all in slow motion as you can in all those magnificent grand falls.
OR A NICE HOTEL AND A BIT OF A CALM DOWN AFTER POXY PALENQUE. Alert: Posting this hurriedly, had a dramatic fall, bash and crash in my studio on Sunday so have been busy with […]
ALERT ALERT ALERT:A WORD OF CAUTION. GOOGLE PHOTOS, mysteriously disappeared swathes of photos from all of my trip thus far. Then a few days later more vanished back to September 2020. This is happening to many angry people apparently. They do not respond with this complaint by a crowd of furious clients who have lost precious memories. The fact mine went in swathes was very odd too. Lucky I am an anorak on trips and download to an external hard drive but I don’t have any pre trip photos and videos from September. Warn everyone as it seems to be a huge problem and they don’t respond.I seem to have permanently lost all Christmas pics and am heartbroken.
OR TOUGH ROAD TRIP FINALLY GETS ME THERE!
Pyramid
Journey to Palenque was long, I’d downloaded a crazy series to binge watch for the six hours which just about kept me sane as they pull the screens most of the way down on the ADO buses and have tinted glass and all sorts so no window gazing just navel and Netflix gazing.
Although I had had a great time in the museums with the magnificent jade masks the day before, I had also had a drama at the bank after, and a miserable, bad dinner in the evening. I had drank the last of my six pack in my fluorescently lit room and felt glum and anxious about the following day. I was to be pleasantly surprised however.
An hour up the road with the collectivo is Edzna. Without Lariza at my hotel, I wouldn’t have known anything. She was excellent for the proper local information and knew exactly where to get what, and what was open. The other shitheads were full of false info. Despite the hotel being eccentric, she was my rock.
I even had low expectations that the museums would be open today but bliss! After a very good nights sleep I got up to a bright calm day and the museums I indeed wanted, were open. I went straight to the museum that has the very famous jade mask and oh what a treat. Beautifully curated and with a great atmosphere and lighting, the guards there said I should also go to the Archaeological Museum Fort San Miguel. One quick cab ride and I arrived at a fort with the courtyard rooms converted into a museum. They really have good gear here but again another spoiler was the boss kept saying my nose had to be covered and was jokey but serious. I was sweating and panicking but I wanted to see the fine collection there. I noticed other people with their noses out of the masks but I guess if you’re Mexican it’s ok. I’ve heard other people complain of this and it’s such a shame after the Mayan Riviera where they are just so much cooler.
campeche museo de arquitura maya de nuestra senorade la soledad
Alert: This is pure moaning and I will cover the museums there and Edzna in my next post so as not to sully the good bits! The jade and historical sites are lovely. It’s just travelling at this time is so silly and hysterical and I forget that when I’m in Tulum, indeed I checked the travel for Other countries in my neck of the woods and was shocked at the new hysteria all over South America etc
