Lazy day

I´ve been remarkably slothful today, which has done me the power of good, I think. I had a long lie-in, despite the best that the hellish bells of the cathedral could do.

I´d like to say that I was recovering from delayed jet-lag or the exertions of my ten-hour drive to Calakmul, but truth be told I was up late last night drinking with the hostel staff. Everytime I got two-thirds of the way down my bottle of Corona a new one would appear, on the house, so it would´ve been rude to refuse.

Juan, the boss, is a funny little chap. He´s remarkably camp, in a giggly knee-slapping sort of way, but he tells me he´s married and that his ambition is to be a gigolo in London. "But I need this body," he said, tenderly running his hand over a magazine aftershave advert. He said he was a professional architect and he bought the hostel to escape the rat-race and improve his quality of life. Most of the time he just loafs about here chatting to the guests. I can´t imagine what his wife thinks of it all.

The staff are all very nice, in particular one girl who works in the afternoons and stuck around to join in the drinking last night. In a distinctly Mayan way she manages to combine the looks of Audrey Hepburn and Sade, but her most attractive feature is her dirty laugh, exactly like Barbara Windsor in her Carry On film prime.

After I´d struggled out of bed this morning I went for what I´ve always called a Mexican Breakfast - a fag, a fart and a cup of coffee. Before coming here I assumed that good, strong coffee would be available on every street corner in Mexico, but far from it. I´m yet to have a decent one. Everyone seems to use Nescafe, and then so sparingly that it barely stains the water. This is in a country that grows coffee and has Costa Rica and Columbia on its doorstep; a nation that is proud to the point of tedium of its culinary heritage, yet they drink absolutely awful coffee. The only reason I can think of is that Nescafe is advertised so aggresively - everywhere you look there are beautiful blond people flirting over their steaming mugs on billboards. Perhaps this propaganda campaign has been so successful that the locals associate fresh coffee with old-fashioned peasant life. Who knows? But it´s most disappointing. I don´t even want to know what unspeakable horrors they visit upon tea.

I spent a few hours wandering around town trying to shake off the feeling that I must do something exciting, interesting or adventurous every day. Then I nearly got run over by a fat lady in an enormous yellow truck, and felt much better.

I also spent a happy half hour watching the pelicans diving into the sea for fish. I was impressed by the way they did it in groups, perfectly simultaneously and with precise choreography. I suppose if one went in by itself it would startle the fish for all the others.

Dinner, as described on the menu, was ´Beff, Freemason Style´. Yes, it was a square meal, and quite delicious, but I can´t see what bits of beef with chilli and onion has to do with the ancient craft. I half expected the waiters to rush out with a blindfold and make me swear never to reveal the ingredients.

Tomorrow, I´m catching a bus to Palenque, one of the most picturesque Mayan cities in Mexico, I´m told. I´ve been dithering mightily over whether to catch a flight up to Cuba, but the more I read about it, the more expensive it sounds. I´ve read some travel websites saying it can be done for about fifty quid a day, but that includes such advice as drinking boiled tap water and licking lead paint to ward off hunger pangs.