Mexico Easter 2003 - Part 5: Uxmal ruins and Campeche

8th April 2003 - The immigration office, ruins of Uxmal and Campeche

After a fruity sleep, we went to a cafe for breakfast, where I got me a hardcore Mex equivalent of a British fry-up breakfast, which hear me, hear me, was well appreciated by my rumbling belly.

After this, I chose to go with Sybren and Bonnie to the Immigracion to sort out Bonnie’s visa stamp missed in Cancun - nothing gives me more kicks than doing silly local things like this - this is the how you get to the real deal and nitty gritty. What followed was either - a nightmare OR Mexicoco at its beguiling craziest. I waited for 2 of them to sort out one bloody passport stamp for two hours flat, talking half an hour to an American who had been Mexicoing for 25 years from Texas. He really sold me San Cristobal de la Casas, saying it was the most perfect place up high for independent backpackers, lots of life and action in town, and “real” Mexican life. I am now really thinking of spending a lot of my two leftover weeks over there, but I’ve got to check it out properly when we go there next week. Very cheap, very appealing, but 20 damned hours by bus from Cancun - I hate buses for that long.

We finally walked out of the Immigration Office and got driving to Uxmal, I was the van DJ again second day running. Vanessa was this time demoted (?) to the back seat. I was feeling really genius watching the Mexican highways, trees, mountains and the world and the great land of the sombrero flying past as we head like a life train to Uxmal, another Mayan ruin. Sometimes it looks like those endless Australian outback ranges but with lots of rainforest vegetation. We passed ramshackle towns regularly and traffic police waving their big bellies around at incoming bikes and trucks like missiles, always missing their bellies by inches. Our journey came through to Uxmal and the heat was unbearable. Before going into the ruins, we had lunch, me and Tosh hacked open a big juicy red watermelon and I munched this with almost sexy pleasure with all the other food from the cooler. Uxmal was another ruin site where we should all have chipped in for a guide to show and tell us things, but I couldn’t be bothered, because I wanted to get into the pool outside the ruins pretty fast. I showed my hardness at the ruins, of course, Helen appreciated my hardness the most, giggling as usual … (the sign you can’t see says “It is dangerous to go up”) …

The sun was beating so hard, my leather hat softened up to a mush and factor 45 suncream didnt do much good because all the sweat just washed it all away. So enough was enough, I headed direct for the pool, and slowly, a lot of us got there in the lush heat. There were big swarms of multi-coloured butterflies flying everywhere and all sorts of creepies. Tosh made us laugh to death by swimming to the end of the pool, letting out a really loud “SHIT!” and then telling us he left his wallet in his swimming pants pocket, so he spent the rest of the afternoon drying his money in the van. From here, we were to drive to Campeche, by the Gulf of Mexico, to go to the supermarket to get tonight’s dinner. Vanessa and Florence have been elected the victims today, providing the people with chicken, rice and vegetables. We reached the supermarket at sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, and I put one Bob Marley track on loop, driving everyone mad!

The campsite where we were supposed to pitch up was closed, the owners had died. However, the mujeres in the house let us camp the night in the little garden with a concrete covered palapa for our cooking area. It was dark when me and Tosh put our tent up, but we made the covered banda for cooking look quite cosy. I got the CD player and speakers from the van, and we had a whale of a time. I sneaked spices and salsa into the chicken, because the wussies would otherwise have created a really bland meal. And somebody came up with the shining idea that we should dump all our cream into the boiled vegetables. The meal that resulted was delicious, served on a bed of pure rice, which Tosh cooked to perfection (You don’t want to tell the Japanese how to cook rice!). We whiled away a lovely night, my smoking was increasing every day. The sleep was okay but my sweat kept getting in the way of my sleep, as I was sweating buckets. The smoking kept the mosquitoes away, thankfully.

With all the many sounds of the hot night, the most common were dogs snarling, birds chirping, cats fighting and big insects whirring and I saw a spider - the size of my palm and fingers.

Campeche

I wrote this that night.

A night I spent at Ciudad Campeche
It was long with sweat
Like myths of Alhambra.
It was fiery and great.

Insects on the vagabond dogs
Lived lost and happy in forest -
Richer than the colours of Piste cars
Green, black insects of the forest.

Diseased dogs with infected pus ears
Ticks and razor buffalo beetles in the banos
Finding their way through ozone layers, caressed humid;
Then it rains, scattering the singing ninos.