La Luna Roja

The all-day beach rave and wet t-shirt contest season had arrived, and my cousin and I found ourselves unfortunately close to Mexico’s’ Spring Break capitol. Playa del Carmen: a young fisherman village blessed by the Mayan Gods yet cursed by Cancun’s tourist’s search for something more “local.” So on our own search for the unfamiliar, we decided to forget our plans and venture south of the hotel region of the Riviera Maya.
We got on a bus heading south towards the border with Belize. After a few hours on the road, the nightfall decided it was time to disembark at a town called Bacalar. With no real destination we began walking –forward, putting all trust on our own two feet. Soon enough, somewhere between the chilling silence of the empty streets and the obnoxious whispering of the jungle creatures -anxiety hit us. We began discussing all possible endings to our night, most resembling spring-break horror movies. We had found what we were looking for; there was no spring break in this town.
After what felt like hours of walking, regretting, and wishing we were back at the beach club sipping margaritas, we heard the music of salvation being played by guitars and a sign that read Casa Tortuga. An overly happy guy welcomed us. “Have you girls seen the sun?”/“What a stupid question, of course we saw the sun.” He became ecstatic by our confusion and with arrogance for knowing our future before us, he led us to one of the most magical nights of our lives.
The hostel sat on a lake called Laguna de 7 Colores and it was April 15th 2014 the night of a total lunar eclipse. We followed him down a long passage of palm trees blocking the night sky towards something special. And there it was; the lake and two red moons. We dove straight into the warm sweet-water reflection, and we swam underneath a blood-red moon that sat as big as the sun at noon, right in the center of that black Mexican sky. Our hearts pounded and the butterflies in my belly were flying in total chaos. We swam, and we laughed and we screamed. And it was the highest level of ecstasy that my body ever reached. Floating on my back staring at that nocturnal sun, I felt the energy of the universe running through my body. I closed my eyes and my body felt like I was free falling from the sky, but my mind was in state of complete serenity. I felt it was the universe reassuring me that I was doing fine–telling me to keep following my own footsteps. I felt love. In that moment, I felt connected to everything.