The Beach Goes On

A week in Tulum was enough for now but I will be back. I've been hanging at Hotel El Caracol on Isla Mujeres for a week and the time is approaching to head back to the coast of Oaxaca. The island is over the top picturesque but there will be no pictures as the new Canon has already been destroyed. I want my bad luck with cameras to stop now. I suppose I could easily make that happen by just not buying another one.


I rented a clunker of an old ten speed from Papaya Playa and ventured further down the beach away from the ruins. Hotels block access to the beach all the way down with their "Accessar Prohibido" signs. Somebody told me those signs don't apply to tourists. That's probably true as none of them are in English. It's a bit of a raw deal for the locals. Whose beach is it anyways?


Eventually I trespassed and nobody stopped me. Wow. That beach went on forever. I wanted to see how far it would go so I rode that bike on the relatively hard wet sand through the thin waves on the shore and found myself way beyond any hotels in no man's land. If you could find your way in off the road and had enough supplies, it would make the world's best camping destination.

Reserva Natural

Carina left for Copan a few mornings ago. She makes me look like such a slacker.

The nasty little hustler that had been hassling me before started stepping over the line. He got mad and stomped after me down the street, telling me how tough he was. "I spent two years in Dallas, Texas. You wanna see my tattoos?"

Panachel was becoming less fun all the time.

On the advice of Mary and Rita from Utah, I visited a great national park nearby called Reserva Natural Atitlan. I arrived late and the trail was losing light so I didn´t try the zip lines. The rickety and rotten suspension bridges made me doubt I would have enjoyed them anyhow.





Saw a very pretty waterfall and some monkeys. At first the monkeys kept a distance but then they gradually started moving in on me. I was the only person on that trail and I had the strange sense they were strategically stalking me.


I moved on to the mariposa garden. The butterflies seemed to be hiding. Found the private beach for the park just as it started to get dark.

http://www.atitlanreserva.com/