03.20.21

Last Friday I walked to downtown Progreso and caught a bus to Mérida. Upon boarding my second bus, I entered some kind of mystic portal, arriving in another time zone, an hour or two behind the posted schedule. Nothing could have prepared me for what I found upon arriving in Playa del Carmen, stepping outside the station and into the bustling, crazy-full Quinta Avenida. There were shops in every direction, tourists talking loudly to each other and to their phones, maybe half of the crowd agreeing to wear a mask despite the evening’s humidity, consuming ice cream and alcohol alike up and down the street. My face naturally fell into a grin as I let out a sigh of relief upon finding my dear friend Shemaiah waiting on the sidewalk outside their place.

We joined her partner Kevin for tacos around the corner and got lost in the thick of it. After walking maybe half an hour, we ducked down a side street lined with tall trees and large, tropical leaves ending at the ocean. We decided to walk on the beach all the way back to the apartment, crossing through the property of several ritzy hotels in our path. Though we observed and aimed to follow the tide’s lead and timing, we still got pretty wet. We stood in the sand below Parque los Fundadores and discussed how so often, as people get older, they forget how to have fun. Having fun is like exercising, you have to work and use that fun muscle to gain more energy, zest for life and the ability to continue having even more fun. We know and understand the need for and how to relax, rest and recuperate, but how or what exactly does having fun look like, how can it be defined? We agreed that having fun meant choosing to actively, rather than passively engage with your surroundings, with wonder and excitement, as if you are experiencing it all for the first time, as a child does.

Though close to the city center, I was grateful to be able to sleep in til 10:30. I woke and found they had already gone to the frutería. I made coffee and we had a proper feast of Caribbean fruits—papaya, mango, passion fruit, star apple and the following morning, soursop! We took a taxi about thirty minutes outside of town, the most lush greenery on either side of the highway, running as far as you could see. I spoke with our driver in Spanish and learned that not only do parrots and monkeys reside in the surrounding jungle, but also jaguars and panthers. He advised we not walk through the area at night, and agreed that we very well might end up some animal’s evening snack or dinner. He explained that cenotes are basically sinkholes, where soft spaces in the ground cave in and create a cavern, which then fills with water from the rivers below the surface. One area of the highway was under construction from the ground sinking there about a year ago. Upon further investigation, Mayan ruins and artifacts were identified, and an archeological team was assigned this location to preserve these invaluable pieces.

He dropped us at the side of the road, where we paid the entry fee and walked two kilometers along the trail, which led first to la Sagrada cenote. At first glance, it didn’t look like much, steps down to a cave with a mess of floating algae atop. Once submerged, we realized the bottom was a lot deeper than it appeared from above the water\’s surface. The cave was also home to some bats, which we noticed every so often flying through, the flapping of wings and shadowy shapes along the stone walls a bit eerie. We swam through a tunnel, unable to see anything below us. Only a bit of light fell from a second, smaller hole up ahead, backlighting the fish that led our way. We could free dive from there, though the bottom was still out of reach, and beyond a certain point was total darkness with no way of discerning where or if the cave ended at all.

We ate more fruit in the sun on the steps above and walked another ten minutes to the second pool, a giant hole in the ground with a precarious looking wooden and rope step ladder leading down to the water below. While I also couldn’t touch the bottom in this spot (in most parts), it seemed perhaps deeper than the first, and so much bluer. I swung from the rope swing and made a big splash. Floating in a spot of sunshine, I suddenly saw a couple of lights shining out of the darkness from where I thought the cave had ended. Two scuba divers silently cruised by along the side of the cave, just like all the baby catfish we found there, focused only on their personal mission. We learned that all of the caves connect through a complex subterranean river system, and that divers can travel underground in the dark from one cenote to the next. The third pool was occupied and much more open and exposed than the others. Still, the water in the shade was pretty chilly after a while! We swam around again and grew warmer on our walk and ride back via colectivo to Playa.

A few quick showers and we were out the door for carnitas tacos, followed by mixed drinks at a fancy restaurant on the beach. We drank from our own private, cozy bed in the sand, a few feet away from the shore. Talk of self-care, mindfulness around not repeating our parents\’ mistakes, to really figuring out our passions and life directions. We continued the discussion on the roof of their apartment, underneath the stars, then continued roof-hopping, til we found some good and loud house music. It had been a while since I’d been able to really let loose like that, leaning into a groove and rhythm in the way that deafening speakers so demand. The night was hot; halfway naked, we jumped in the pool, got some more good sleep, and had even more delicious fruits in the morning before heading out for a full day at the beach. Swimming in the Caribbean is unlike any other body of water I’ve ever been in—the temperature so warm, the sensation so silky and the view so clear. Absolute perfection.

Walking back in the evening, we filled, then re-filled two bags full of trash. In combing the sand, we noticed others noticing us and start to pick up some trash themselves. Just outside the very human hustle of Quinta Avenida, a banda of birds made their presence known. They ruled the traffic lights and sang in the night together, the beating of many wings calling us back to another sort of time. We stopped later for some roasted chicken, tortillas, salsa and rice, and enjoyed a little picnic dinner in the plaza. Monday morning I headed to the roof some fifteen minutes before sunrise. I can\’t remember the last time I chose to wake up for it, and it had been even longer since I’d seen the sun climb up out of the ocean. It was fucking magnificent, the clouds lighting up golden as the sun hovered at the surface of the water before really reaching for the sky, the light changing as it went to an intense white.

A friend recently stated how you experience time passing more quickly in cities, and in places farther from the equator because of their seasons. Everyone is constantly rushing to do all of the things before each season passes. Throughout Yucatán and this peninsula in general, we are finding that time moves so much more slowly. You cannot rush anything here, and if attempted, you\’ll only be disappointed. All to do then is let go and relinquish control to the flow. As I half swam, half floated along one of the rivers in San Luís, I noticed almost too late how strong the current was. I tucked in my knees and rolled along with the water, above the rocks and into a more tranquil zone. When I tried to cross a second time, I thought I could mostly swim against it. The current rushed me, and I quickly went down, tumbling across the river, scraping my elbow and arm on some rocks as I went. Bring it on, nature. I know very well by now just who\’s in charge, though I do still love to test the limits.

I stopped for a few days in Valladolid on my way back on Monday. A couple of new friends took me to La Selva, a restaurant serving authentic foods of the Yucatán. I loved it all-sopes, panuchos, salbutes and chalupas! We walked around the city and admired the old buildings, wide and tall wooden doorways originally constructed so that someone on a horse could easily pass through. They told me how the church of stones in the plaza was once a Mayan temple, which was de, then reconstructed in the same location with the same materials by the Spanish after they eventually, sufficiently massacred, or \”conquered\” the Mayans of that area.

The next day, I worked in the beautiful garden by the pool, surrounded by flowers of various colors and plants with leaves larger than my head. We went to a cenote in the middle of downtown, this one wide open, pretty big and super deep. Some dudes were doing backflips high up from one of the cliffs. I was content to tread and float on my back, gazing upwards at the stalactites that decorated the cave ceiling and wondering if stalagmites similarly covered the floor far below. 

I finally had my first tequila shot since arriving in Mexico over a month ago. We took it sip by sip, with limes and sea salt on their patio, watching the iguanas watching us. And bit by bit, we opened up and allowed our anxieties to melt away. Choosing to embrace the moment, and live every day to the fullest.