So I was in Playa del Carmen. I hated it. It was so touristy and built up; full of the kind of people I hate; and strangely the drains smelt really bad too, Hendrik wanted to go to some music festival called BPM, while we were there and dragged me down to the beach to one of the events beach parties, only for me to find loads of drugged up, pissed people all over the place. I freaked out and went home early. I found myself looking down my nose at all these messed up people, thinking what the hell, which was funny when only two nights earlier I had been cavorting drunkenly around a pole in a nightclub flashing my ass (What a hypocrite)!I was feeling down and anti social and then I told Hendrik it was time.
'I need to be on my own" I said.
"What schatzi! You are leaving me on my own' he replied shocked! I told him I was and that he would be alright and that I would be back to join him once again when I had found social Carly.
I booked myself a bus ticket to Merida which is an old colonial town. After being a bit over ambitious by deciding to walk all the way from the bus station to the hostel, in the midday sun, I finally arrived hot and sweaty and threw my bag down.
"Do you have a bed free in a dorm?"
"No, we are all full!"
I look round in panic. The thought of dragging my back pack all over town trying to find a bed scares me just thinking about it!
"But we do have a hammock, you can have in the girls dorm." I think about it for a second and then think sod it! "I'll take it!" I reply. It doesn't bother me sleeping in a hammock, I did for a couple of nights in the jungle in Colombia. You just have to find a comfortable position and not move from that for the rest of the night (easy right)? What does bother me though is, that they had forgot to mention that its a dorm with 22 other girls! I think its the biggest dorm I've ever slept in! So much for peace and quiet time. The hostel seems quite a social place and everyone seems to be mixing and socialising but as I'm not in the mood for this I take myself off to the centre and go and see the sights.
As I'm walking round the main square minding my own business, I keep getting approached by local guys. They ask me my name, where I'm from, and am I here on my own. I tell that all politely that I just want to be left a lone. Its seems funny that they are trying to chat me up as most of them are so small they only come up to my chest. The Mexicans are small. Alex who is five foot nothing, is classed as a tall person over here. The women usually just about reach my waist, so I'm a total freak out here being 5'10. That said the men seem to be strangely fascinated by tall women. There is one guy in particular that won't leave me a lone. He follows me around everywhere, even though I have told him a 100 times I just want to be left alone. He insists that I meet him that night for a music festival that is going on in the town. I say yes in the end, but only to get rid of him. I have no intention of meeting him again.
Everyone is talking about the festival, so I decide to go anyway, and hide myself away in a corner to watch and where no one can find me. Wrong! I had seen most of the nights proceedings and was having a great time on my OWN, when the guy found me again. He wondered why I had not met him. I lied and said I couldn't find him. He then insisted on buying me a beer. I said no. He came back with one for me anyway, already opened. My brain told me not to trust this guy and I was scared he had put something in the drink.
"Why don't you drink my drink. I brought it for you!" he started saying. I told him I didn't want it, and wouldn't drink it. He became angry at me, and just kept telling me to drink the beer. I became quite scared by him, so I seized my moment and ran off into the crowd. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me all the way back to the hostel, (good job I have long legs), looking behind me all the way.
In the morning I awoke in my hammock, thinking I wasn't going to find the peace and quiet I wanted in Merida. Besides I didn't want to spend another night in the hammock, with 22 girls in a room! I had heard a few travellers mention a town called Campeche on the coast 2 hours from Merida. I thought why not and packed my bag. After another bus journey of being nearly frozen to death with air-con, I arrived in Campeche, and met an old English couple called Richard and Angela, who I shared a taxi with into the centre. They then asked me if I would like to explore the town with them. Oh God! I thought, is this is what it has come to; hanging out with old people, but actually as we walked around I realised that they were really sweet, interesting and we had a lot in common. They had sold their home 3 years ago and now worked running camp sites in the summer and traveled around the world in the winter. I found them quite inspiring and a refreshing change from the normal backpackers talking the same old shit. I think I would like to be like them when I'm older. We decided to go for something to eat and I made them have a beer, well actually two and a Margarita (I am now a corrupter of the old now too), which went straight to their heads due to the fact, as Angela told me, they don't really drink and never during the day. They had to go and have a siesta after that, and off they wandered into the sunset and I never saw them again. I finally had what I wanted, I was alone! I walked around Campeche on my own, and it was perfect. It was the little Mecca I had been looking for; no local men pestering me; hardly any gringo's; nothing set up for tourists; just peace and quiet. I was finally alone. Even my hostel was nearly empty and the guy that ran it was so laid back, he barely functioned.
As I walked around in the evening I realised that everything in the town was shut by 8pm and as there were hardly any places to eat in the first place I found myself back in the restaurant that I had eaten in with Angela and Richard earlier in the day, as it seemed to be the only place open! I was sat quite happily eating and reading my book when a Mariachi band decided to come and serenade me in front of the whole restaurant. I wanted to curl up and die, and I tried to hide my embarrassment by hiding behind my book. After they had finished a young guy walked up to me:
"I could see you were looking a bit distressed there. Would you like to come and join us at our table?"
"Yes please!" I replied desperately.
The young guy turns out to me called Elliot and he is sat with his father Jeff. They both hail from the windy city, Chicago. They turn out to be pleasant company, especially Jeff who is a sweet natured man. They also stop me being molested by the Mariachi band, and neck a drink as well, as me. What more could a girl ask for? The night proceeds with more Margarita's than we should of; debates on the Euro and the war in Iraq; getting into an argument with some weird Flemish guy about the Euro (I don't quite know how he came to be sat with us)?; and finally we ended in the only bar in town for one last night cap. The bar, lets say, is not the best. In fact I'm the only woman in there, and its full of drunken locals, who faces light up when they see me walk in (Well the ones who weren't face down on a table passed out drunk)! I think I'm going to get raped! Some guys walk over and start pestering me. Jeff tells, them I'm his daughter, Elliot tells them I'm his girlfriend, so to leave me alone, and I'm sat there thinking we look like some sort of weird incest family! I sit drinking a Sol, not trying to look around too much because every time I do there is this fat seedy Mexican guy, with a big moustache winking and waving at me. I was quite glad to leave in one piece and Jeff and Elliot escorted me back to my hostel, just to make sure.
After finding my solitude, I realised it was time to become sociable Carly again. For my last couple of days I ventured to Isla Mujeres, where I had promised to rejoin Hendrik. I arrived late, exhausted and hungover. A early night, I think to myself, well that is until I bump into Hendrik. He is walking around bare foot.
Me: "Why don't you have any shoes on?'
Hendrik: "I had my flip flops stolen when I got here. I also had my towel and my credit card stolen too. Look what happens to me when you leave me on my own schatzi!"
Me: "Its not my fault! Why don't you buy some new flip flops?"
Hendrik: "Because I only have 3 days left, so it's not worth it."
Me: "So you are just going to walk round bare foot till then."
Hendrik: "Yes."
Me: "What the hell!"
Hendrik also informs me that the hostel is a party hostel and is impossible to get an early night, so I may as well as he likes to put it "Make party!" Well I do have a free new arrival drink, it would be rude not to use it! I think it was 4am when I dragged my sorry ass to bed. So much for an early night, but at least there was no pole dancing involved.
I spent my last day on the beach trying to top up my non existent tan. I started to think. I had loved my time in Mexico; had met some great people, and seen some great places, but it was then I realised something! I was homesick! Homesick! I never get homesick! I was 5 months in South America and never had it once. Once I was 8 months travelling around the world and I never got it even then! Why then now? It was because I wanted to go back and make the most of my normal life, this life that I had hardly experienced in the last year because of being away; this normal life that I had taken for granted; this normal life that I actually loved. Because this normal life was going to be taken away from me very soon and I wanted to make the most of the time, I had left with it. It was time to go home, but I wasn't sad. I know this will not be the last time I see Mexico. It's just another journey for me to have
WONDERFUL images!
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