Off The Beaten Tran

As a kid who watched The Real Cancun and had visions of busty blondes licking salt and tequila off rippling abs, the fact that an elderly pepper-haired Mexican, his face smeared with frenetically applied mascara and lipstick, was pleasuring himself as he stared into my eyes made me think that, somehow, I’d taken a wrong step.

Tulum is an enchanting seaside town. Cheery children in rags flitter about the oppressively monstrous Greyhounds, crying: “Pesos! Pesos!” Coconuts are plucked from scattered tropical trees by obliging local folk. Exhausted mothers guzzle margaritas before teardrops of condensation can trickle down their pretty hands.

Tulum’s El Castillo – a crumbling Mayan ruin, gallantly rising about the white sands of the Yucatán shoreline – is a tourist mecca. Its bold and recognisable silhouette has become the Taj Mahal of romantic coastal Mexico. Plump pelicans waddle past as you swelter in the intoxicating heat of the day. Unless you go hunting, you’d miss the rainbow tombstones covered in trinkets and crucifixes scattered beneath the palms, and the wailing of Latino love songs that flood the grottos at the edge of town, dusted lazily by the hand of American consumerism. You’d miss swimming beneath the mossy stalactites as they cling desperately to the ancient cenote ceilings with shards of moonlight and flashing neon bugs daintily slashing across the darkness of the canyon. These little moments of magic don’t lend themselves to the vacationer reluctant to hop off that bargain of a package tour.

A little dusty from a late night spent with an awful bottle of red wine and a self-acclaimed “shaman” (read: pusher man of psychedelic potions), I wrested myself from my thatched-roof, clay-walled bungalow and out onto the flour beach. You see, I had been assured, beyond the rustic boats that bobbed delicately upon the ruby horizon, dolphins dipped and skipped at the dawn.

With a flash, however, the dolphins were off my mind. It was Alberto, the local butcher who, clearly after a raging party night, had stumbled, in drag, upon me. He pulled his pants down and, moaning to the heavens, explored his own little slice of paradise.

But that, I’m afraid, is Mexico: unapologetic, occasionally unwanted, and always unpredictable.

I sat still, waiting for the giant sea fish to dance. Yes, I had missed out on the buffet of muffins at the Best Western up the road, but at least I had discovered a tiny piece of the World. A tiny piece.