Sagas revisited...Cancún Part II

I suppose I owe it to my devoted readers to update you all on some things that were left just hanging in my blogging as of late. Where to begin I suppose...

Cancún...I was profoundly struck by the boldness of the diverging worlds of this tourist mecca. On the one hand, there are fantastic resorts with fantastic beaches and large airy shopping centres filled with Dolce & Gabbana and endless souvenir t-shirt shops; on the other hand, there are Wal-Mart Super Centres built on the side of the highway beside 4-storey walk-up apartments that look like they would crumble if hit by one stiff wind...buildings so rundown-looking and covered with hanging laundry, the stereotypical malnourished street dogs that seem to be a feature of most movies set in Mexico, and lots of short people.

Rod and I took the bus out to the Wal-Mart, and I was fully aware that we had left tourist-land behind. It was an awkward experience going to Wal-Mart. I was acutely aware from the moment we got off the bus that local people were staring at us and they didn't quite know what two tourists were doing there. Even the employees were uncertain and couldn't help but stare. It was weird...too weird. I was an inmate of Wal-Hell for nearly a year and a half once myself, and I just can't remember a time or picture in my head me *staring* at a customer who seemed to not fit in.

I was also struck by the bus buskers. Small boys as young as 7 years old getting on and belting out La Cucaracha, La Bamba or other popular Mexican tunes at the top of their little lungs. On the Tuesday night, around 10:30 pm, Rod and I were on a bus headed back to the hotel and two boys got on and started their bit. It occurred to me that these kids, who told an inquisitive lady on the bus that they were 8 and 10 (though I would say more like 6 and maybe 9), had school the next morning. Like the lady, I wondered how their parents could be aware that their boys were out busking late on a school night, but since there were at least a half a dozen other boys competing for buses, I had some suspicions of my own as to what they were doing.

I miss the beach. I miss waking up to the endlessly stretching Caribbean Sea running off with the bright blue sky, and the warm sun over head. But I like having the moon. It's strange. Rod and I were out for a late stroll on the beach one night when I remarked that I had not seen the moon since we had left Edmonton. If anyone can tell me if there's some sort of a scientific explanation for it, please do so because I was puzzled that I wasn't getting the full-on romantic moonlit walks on the beach.

And people stop on the side of the highways randomly. Driving in from the airport, I saw about 3 or 4 vans, trucks or cars parked on the shoulder, people just sitting there on the stretches of grass dividing the north and south lanes, lying out, napping, eating, talking. I think the only time I've even seen people on the grassy divides of the highways in Canada is when there are people mowing the grass.

Of course, there's so much more about Cancún that I can run on about, but nothing struck me more than driving through a "first world" setting and into a "second world" setting in a matter of 5 or 6 city blocks. I've travelled internationally before, but I don't think I had ever felt like I was somewhere so foreign as there. I know, you are saying to yourselves, "Cancún? Foreign?", but it's true. Even when I was in Spain, I felt a certain...cosmopolitanism or worldliness...like they had been there for centuries and had "been there, done that".

Anyways, off to bed. Next I'll talk about the experience of meeting Mayan culture.