Stupid, Dead, or Unconscious

So, we could still go see Tikal. Reading the Lonely Planet guide on how to get from Belize to Tikal and back, it sounds like no sweat. The problem is, though. I’ve also read that you shouldn’t wander away from crowds at Tikal. People will rob you and rape you even as you climb the steps of ancient temples.

There are different types of violence in the world. We considered going to Israel, for example this winter, until the bombing started. Egypt was at the top of our list too. And actually, even after the bombings and talks of war, we still thought about it. We had conversed with an Israeli family in Costa Rica (they chose Costa Rica because of its religious tolerance, interestingly) and they told us that Israel was safe enough. As we left the Denver Marriott for the airport, I grabbed a USA Today, which had headlines about the Connecticut school shooting in the United States. What does “safe” really mean anyway?

In reality, I would feel safer in Israel than in Guatemala right now based on our reading. Random acts of violence in countries where the government is corrupt are really scary. I always think of the French Revolution. When people have nothing left to lose, that’s when the situation becomes really dire. And most of Mexico and Guatemala have hit that pitch already.

In places like Cancun and Progreso where there is a tourist economy, there seems to be some immunity from desperate measures, at least for the time being. I suppose because the people here are less desperate. They have “enough”. They aren’t starving. They still value their lives. Currently, I’m looking for a path from the Yucatan to Mexico City where there’s enough. A path through which we could make our way overland safely, buying bananas and peanut butter; traveling early morning to just before sunset.

I asked Iracema about traveling from here to Mexico City. She was sitting in her SUV and she raised her eyebrows at me, looked away for a second and then raised both hands to pantomime a machine gun and said, “muchos asaultos” (or something like that…I’m not sure how the ‘assault’ word is spelled). I didn’t press for more information. She had a sinus infection and wouldn’t probably think optimistically about a trip anywhere in the world in her condition.

I recall our trip to Palenque last year and how the social tenor slowly changed as we made our way into the southern areas. We crossed briefly into Tabasco. (“Oh cool!” John said, “We’re in Tabasco…this is where Tabasco comes from…” By that time, we had crossed back out of the state into Chiapas.) In Chiapas, the color of people’s skin changed. The landscape became grassy. There were cows, and a warm, yellow sunset. Then, there were mountains and rainforests. People in the city of Palenque scoped us out. There were pickpockets who would follow closely behind us. Menacing stares.

We made our way into the mountains. “Let’s go see San Cristobal de Las Casas,” we decided. We had considered living there for a month. So after a morning at the ruins of Palenque, we took off into the hills.

Carefully, we dodged the areas where the roads had collapsed due to landslides. Shanty towns were set up along the winding road. People lived in cardboard homes. Women sold fried plantains in baggies along the topes (Mexican-style speed bumps that can almost make your car high-centered or cause it to break an axel). Up and up we went.

Beside a bridge, on the shoulder of a road, that spanned a river, was a man lying supine as we whizzed by.

“Did you see that?” John said. I’d missed it, looking down at the map. “There was a dead body by the road.”

“What?”

“I’m sure the guy was dead. He was just lying there.”

“I doubt that he was dead, John.” I said. Just then, we passed a big boulder with a motionless fellow spread eagle, his crotch exposed to the rock.

Another tope. Women selling plantains. “No gracias…” or sometimes we’d just buy some to be nice. Not wanting typhus, we threw them away later.

“We should turn around.” Said John.

“I bet they’re drunk.” I said, but I wondered how and why they chose to pass out so far outside of the little shanty towns. On the other hand, they weren’t bloated or covered with flies. If they were dead, their bodies were at least “fresh”.

Every now and then, we’d see signs supporting the Zapatistas.

“If we see one more dead body, we’re turning around.” John, the voice of reason, said with finality.

Shortly thereafter, we saw an adolescent boy passed out (or dead) on the roadside. “Okay…that’s it! We’re turning around…I don’t care how cool San Cristobal de las Casas is!” John said admantly. We couldn’t turn around just there though. We had to get to a place in the road where there was space to turn around.

Another tope, this time with two women on either side holding a flimsy piece of string spanning across the road like some pathetic ‘finish line’ of sorts. They’d realized that this was one way to guarantee that people stopped for plantains. The level of desperation had hit that danger-point.

“Just buy the damn plantains…” John said, carefully, discreetly pulling money out of his wallet.

On the way back, we looked a bit more closely at the “bodies”.

“Do you want me to get out and check to see if they’re dead?” I joked as John drove around another one of those collapsed areas of the road. (He said,”No, that’s okay.”)

San Cristobal de las Casas remains a far-off place to us by land from Progreso and Merida in the Yucatan, at least until I can prove that the bodies by the road were just unconscious and not dead.

Day 1 – Problems with Vacation Rentals – Lydian

We officially came back to Mexico, and then finally decided two nights ago that we were going to stay in Progreso, which is the same city we stayed in last year. I like Progreso. I liked it the last time we came here too, but it’s changed since we last came, and there are a lot of things that I didn’t notice the last time we came here. For instance, last year, the little walkway along the beach was under construction. Now, it’s finished, a couple of cars drive on the street now, and there are little shower thingies along the road. It’s kind of cool to come back and see that kind of thing. As we drove into Merida yesterday, I felt strangely familiar with the place. Now, it feels almost like I never left, really. It’s weird. I’m sure that if I went back to Beijing, I would have a similar feeling of comfort and familiarity toward the place as I do here, even though China is a difficult and confusing place to go.

We only officially decided on a rental today, and we’ve existed in Mexico since Sunday, and it’s Tuesday now. But then again, we booked the tickets on Thursday of last week, and went to Colorado on Saturday to make it easier for us to get to the airport on Sunday morning. We had to get there at six in the morning, by the way. But anyways, the place that we’re staying at here is a house that the owner of the Spanish school that we went to last time owns. The house looked pretty nice, I mean, there were people cleaning it and stuff, but it still looked pretty nice overall. There are lots of placed to hang hammocks in the place. So far, on just about every trip we’ve been on, my mom, Jennifer, has brought our hammock with us. Each time, there was nowhere to hang the hammock, so it was pretty much a waste of space. This time, we decided not to bring the hammock because the thing was dead weight all the other times, and of course, we have a use for it. We instead decided to buy some hammocks. I don’t know how many we’re going to get yet, but currently we have one.

Yesterday, we had quite an ordeal with some of the rental properties we had chosen to look at. The first two places were being rented by the same person, so we followed her to them in our itsy bitsy car. The first one looked nice, it really did. I would have totally stayed there, but there was something about how she needed all the money right then and there in cash. My dad couldn’t do that because our debit card has a limit on it to prevent fraud and stuff. She was getting seemingly pissy with us when we were trying to explain our situation, so after a little bit we decided to drop it, but before we did that, we went to see the other property. A condo.

We weren’t going to be able to get in. The only person who had a key wasn’t there, he was picking up his kids in Cancun (which was fine), and nobody had a key into his apartment where there was supposedly an extra key. There was a man named Carlos who offered to show us the condo that we were thinking of staying in, and we went with him. He didn’t have a key either. So then, for some reason I’m  still confused about, he took us down this neat little tranquil pathway to some people who were sitting outside. Carlos attempted to explain our situation in his broken English. If I remember right, my dad was on the phone with the man with the key at this time.  My dad’s phone was given the white man that Carlos had led us to. The man said cool before taking the phone and talking to the man with the key for a short moment. He came back with the same news. There was no way to get the key. In the end we decided to give up on this little adventure because it clearly wasn’t going to work out.

Neither of these properties were within reasonable walking distance of the center of Progreso, which in my opinion, is kind of a negative thing. I really like being able to walk everywhere I go if at all possible. I just like it. I don’t know why. If I could bike, I probably would, but both walking and biking are rather social in a way that driving just isn’t.

Instead, we went to our old language place and asked Iracema if she knew of any properties that would fit our criteria. Oddly, she did, and oddly so, I do believe that we’re going to stay there now. The house is really close to everything that we would want to walk to, like the language school and the dance school (both of which are right next to each other, convenient right?), and the Malecon. I like walking along the Malecon. It’s strangely calming. But anyways, we decided that we were going to stay in a hotel for the night, and asked Iracema if she knew of any hotels in the area. Her husband owns the one that we’re currently staying in, which, ironically, is right down the street from the same place we stayed in last year.

Originally we were going to stay in Merida so that we could take our car back easily and stuff, but we changed our minds because it wouldn’t be that difficult to just take the car back that night and take the bus back. Which it wasn’t. We were renting from Hertz, which is in the Fiesta Americana mall right next to the Hyatt in Merida. The bus stop is kind of out almost behind the Oxxo gas station across the street. Look for a small group of impatient gathered people. That’s the bus stop. The bus ride is about forty five minutes to an hour long from Progreso to Merida. For the three of us it cost somewhere around four dollars (fifty pesos or so). Not a lot.

So yeah, there’s our ‘first’ day in Progreso, Mexico. Will continue updating.