Arrival

I´m writing this in a town called Tulum, which is on the coast about 100 miles south of Cancun, where I landed a little over a day ago. I´ve rented a cabaños, which is a little wooden hut on the beach, with a sand floor and a hammock. Nearby is a ruined Mayan city overlooking the sea, which I´m going to visit tomorrow.

It´s difficult to cast my mind back and fill in the gap since the last entry - it´s hard to remember what it´s like drinking cider around a bonfire on a freeezing winter night when you´re hot and being bitten by mosquitoes.

Wassailing, as always, was an astonishing event. We had about 150 people, all of them in the mood for drinking cider and shouting at trees.

The virgin-in-the-tree this year was Mi Ling, who recently accepted Trigger´s proposal of marriage. He´s so romantic - not only did he write ´will you marry me´in twenty-foot letters on a Barbados beach, but he also got her up an apple tree to be bayed at by a drunken mob. Lucky girl.

The party was in full swing until about half five in the morning, when the last few people made their way home. I had a bit of a tidy up, and put everything flammable onto the fire before I went to bed. The next morning there was some confusion about why nothing had burned - the fire had been taken apart and soaked with water. We were all baffled until later in the day when someone asked us why there´d been a fire engine outside the house at six o´clock.

I didn´t get up in time for ratting the next morning, but I caught up with the hunters and the terriers in the pub at luchtime. They were all rosy-cheeked after their efforts (the people that is, the hounds were caked in mud and covered in bites), which made my shaking hand and miner´s cough all the more apparent.

Then home for roast pheasant, wine and endless questions from Aunty Frances. Luckily, as I don´t have any real plan, I was able to answer ´dunno´ or ´maybe´ until she gave up.

Then, in the evening, I went into Pershore with my friend James to say ´ta-ra´to my favourite pubs.

The next day I drove to London with James and left my car at his new flat for Paul, who is going to need his own transport when he moves in there. After a few hours of endlessly checking that I had my passport and comparing hangovers with James, we headed over to Ian´s for a farewell supper with ´da London massive´.

It was a triumph - his first roast dinner, and even the Yorkshire puddings worked. He got out his pictures from his travels in South America and for the first time I felt excited about leaving, rather than slightly guilty about doing something so fundamentally selfish.

I didn´t risk falling asleep, but Paul and Ian also stayed awake so the time flew by until my cab arrived to get me to the Gatwick express. I reflected afterwards that walking to the train at King´s Cross Station with a rucksack at six in the morning will probably be the most dangerous thing I´ll do in all my travels.

The flight was long, but uneventful and I slept for most of it. My only interaction with anyone was when I kept accidently pressing the assistance button on my seat. Every now and then an orange face would loom over my shoulder and a brightly-painted talon would jab at the button while the stewardess explained (in-her-most-patient-voice) that I shouldn´t press it unless I needed help.

I gave it a damn good press just before I hurried off the plane.

From the airport I got a bus down to Playa de Carmen, which seemed a good half-way point to Tulum - which Andrew had recommended at Ian´s supper.

Just ten years ago it was a little fishing village, but it´s been hugely developed for tourism, mainly from the States - and it was full of Americans. It´s strange how they seem so serious about having fun. Menus are scrutinised, raffia bandits tested for durability and terracotta skulls held up to the light. No silly hats, no saucy postcards and very little laughter going on.

I was about to book into a cheap hostel by the sea called The Ruin, but was stopped by an old man on crutches who told me that his hostel, next door, was cheaper. It was also more of a ruin than the ruin, but by the time he had struggled to show me round the room I felt obliged to stay. When I asked him how he´d hurt his foot he laughed and said he´d crashed his car. "Ha ha ha, I was so drunk, so, so drunk!" I wasn´t sure if I still felt sorry for him.

After a shower (in which I tested my theory that if you start off fully-clothed and then strip you can do your laundry at the same time) I went to have a look around the town.

I say town, but it´s more of a huge open-air tat emporium. What I found odd was that people were happily buying badly-carved depictions of Mayan gods to put on their living room walls. These were the same deities, I presume, that not so long ago were demanding endless rivers of human blood to slake their unquenchable thirst (if unquenchable things can ever be slaked, that is). You might as well decorate your house with pictures of Fred West or Myra Hindley.

One thing I did enjoy was seeing a shopkeeper standing in the doorway of his business rubbing his hands in avaricious glee. His shop, which sold the same rubbish as all the others, was heaving with punters. His trick had been to put up a huge banner saying ´hurricane surplus´. Quite how the destructive power of a hurricane can give rise to any surpluses I´ll never know, but it was working for him.

I was tempted to stay out and see if the town became more interesting later at night, but I was so tired I had to turn in early.

As I woke up the following morning I was convinced I was back at home. The fan in my room was making the exact noise that cars make when they drive past in the rain.

I packed my things and took the key to my limping host. He asked where I was going next and I said Tulum or Cozumel island (I´d noticed that the ferry leaves from Playa de Campa, so I was in two minds). I tossed a coin and asked him to give me heads or tails, which he did, and so I had the answer - Tulum. This method of problem solving delighted him mightily, and his wheezing laughter followed me down the street.

As the minibus set off for Tulum I was full of self-congratulation on having found the right bus stop and paying the right price. Then I remembered that I´d left my shower-fresh clothes drying back at the hostel.

By the way, my shower laundry system does work, but you need to spend ages jumping up and down on the clothes to get all the soap out. Treading on them like a French peasant making wine just doesn´t work. I´ve no idea what the person in the next cublicle thought I was doing sploshing about and panting.

Before long I was at the cabaños site and having a beer looking over the Caribbean sea while my hammock was installed.

I know tropical beaches with thatched huts and coconut palms are most people´s idea of paradise, but I find them deeply dull. So I sat in the shade and tried to learn some Spanish.

I had been considering learning to scuba dive here, but I´m having second thoughts. I just don´t like fish. I don´t like eating them or even looking at them, and I have no desire to spend any time in their company. It would fill me with horror if they started floating about on the land, so I think it´s only fair that I leave them alone in return.

Anyway, I think I´m about up to date now, and here I am in an internet cafe typing this.

Tomorrow I´ll have a look around the ruins that have been tantalising me on the horizon all day.

PS - I´ve got photos that I´d love to put on here, but I´m just too inept. I would ask the owner to help me, but he doesn´t speak any English. He´s also very odd - he just tore up an empty cigarette pack and folded it into a football shirt. "Yes, very," he said, by way of explanation.