cancún, day 2: playa del niño, palacio municipal
I've been back from vacation for a few days now. I originally meant to write (& post) every day I was on vacation, but naturally that didn't end up happening after day 1. Day 2 I was tired, day 3 I was sad. I don't remember what happened after that, though I do have this journal entry from day 3:
The bus ride back from Valladolid to Cancún is a long one. The sun set hours ago; shadowy forests and the occasional street lamp fly by in a blur.
I have a limited data plan and am risking motion sickness by writing this, so I’ve spent the bulk of this transit time alone with my own thoughts. My brother is sitting next to me trying to sleep; I’ve bothered him enough today in my vain attempts to get out of my own head.
I have been ruminating, even though the day of tours has been objectively quite good. I felt like I had to expend great effort to try not to think about other things. I wish I were the kind of person who could enjoy things while they were happening, not after. Though, to paraphrase Tennessee Williams1, isn't life all memory? Is it even possible to live in that fleeting moment we call the present?
Can you be grateful and still sad? Either they can coexist or maybe I’m not grateful enough. There are painful memories that aren’t going away and instead keep swirling around in my head, playing on repeat.
Recently I’ve had a growing feeling that my life has gone terribly, terribly wrong. I couldn’t explain it to you (or maybe just don’t want to in this particular post) but if you've read this blog for longer your guess is probably as good as mine. 'All of the above' is probably the right answer here.
It’s like I’m on a train barreling down the tracks and I know it’s going the wrong direction but no one else is on the train with me. I can’t get off the train or do anything except just watch the train take me further and further away from where I need to be.
I can point to many reasons why I haven't written (or posted much since) — not being in the best place mentally, a resurging wave of imposter syndrome, being plain busy — but none of them strike me as particularly convincing excuses for not writing. So I'm going to put that all aside for now and write about vacation.
Cancún, Day 2: Playa del Niño, Palacio Municipal
My parents tired of following me around everywhere after about a day, so on the second I took my brother to Playa del Niño in search of better pastures. The day before we had visited Playa Tortugas, a public beach in the hotel zone, which underwhelmed. This is what I wrote about it afterwards:
The beaches here have been underwhelming so far. The sand is white and smooth but the shores are overrun with blackened sea grass and the underwater meadows stretch as far as the eye can see. There are few fish swimming about, as far as I can tell, and the public beaches are choked with litter. I know I’ve probably just not found the right beach yet, but so far the ones here are miles behind the other ones I’ve been to that face the Gulf.
Playa del Niño is supposed to be a local favorite, and it lived up to that billing when we visited its busy shores. In order to get there from the hotel zone we planned to take the bus to the last stop and then walk the remaining hour. Our plans (or lack thereof) must have been written on our faces, because when we got off the bus a local asked us where we were going and pointed us towards a little van sort of like this:
These are called combis in México, a term commonly used in other Latin American countries to refer to forms of collective transport not quite big enough to be called buses. They're admittedly very sketchy: our driver managed to squeeze sixteen of us in a van the size of a Honda Odyssey with no seatbelts and didn't bother closing the door (which, from what I could tell observing other combis on the street, is the norm). I also learned later that many crimes involve robbers posing as combi drivers or passengers. My parents were appalled when we related the story to them later, but as a sheltered suburban native I've learned that sometimes you have to put aside your overactive first-world survival instincts to properly function in Latin America.
Anyway, as you can probably guess everything went fine. I asked the combi driver if he was going to Playa del Niño, paid the (unbelievably cheap 10 peso) fare, and arrived in a little under 15 minutes with all the other swimsuit-clad passengers perspiring with me.
Playa del Niño was (surprise!) also a letdown. The beach was dirty and overrun with locals, though we did succeed in getting far away enough from any other tourists, which also happens to be far enough to get called (well-intentioned) things like oye chino!!. It's not new to me like it is to my brother, but I don't know if I'll ever get used to being referred to like that, even if I know they don't mean anything by it.
I learned at lunch in Puerto Juarez that Mexican ceviche is not the same as Peruvian ceviche. I prefer the Andean variant, but Mexican ceviche is delicious too. The real highlight was getting to eat it practically on the beach under the shade of a thatched roof, with my feet in the sand and the breeze blowing through. I miss being there already.
I spent the rest of the day grazing on snacks in Palacio Municipal (City Hall), the temporary home for street food vendors while Parque de las Palapas is under construction. City Hall was covered in graffiti. From what I could read there must have been some sort of rape or sexual abuse scandal.
The vendors start wheeling out their carts around 4 to 5 in the evening. The two most popular items on offer are marquesitas and elotes/esquites, but I also saw people selling fries, churros, and nieves oaxaqueños (homemade Oaxacan-style ice cream).
An elote cart! I love the big corn on the cob decoration they have.
Marquesitas (40-90 pesos, depending on filling selection) are a crispy rolled-up cross between waffles & crepes which you can get filled with fillings like shredded Edam cheese (queso de bola), Nutella, fruit, and cream cheese (which they simply call Philadelphia). They're made on a hot round griddle like a crepe but pressed like a waffle, which gives it the signature fishnet pattern and crispy-crunchy texture. The crepe itself is rather bland and its tendency to shatter makes eating it a messy ordeal. I wish they would use a proper (soft) crepe, though I suppose if they did that there would be no distinction between it and a normal crepe.
If you want something savory, elotes are Mexican street corn on the cob. Esquites or elotes en vaso are served in a cup. Both come customarily with a(n un)healthy dollop of mayonnaise, a squeeze of lime, and chili powder. The corn they use is not the sweet yellow corn we're used to in the States, but white corn with a far milder taste that goes far better with the creamy/sour/spicy combo of the toppings.
“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”↩