Dang, it’s noisy here in Tulum. Yes, that castaway beach town your friends were telling you is such a great place to do yoga and dance in the sand. It’s noisy here in town. Jackhammers, buses, kids screaming and laughing. I’m not at all saying the place is spoiled–in fact, everyone here seems leagues happier than when I first came through town (when there were no sidewalks) in 2003.

I’m just saying there’s a Subway sandwich shop.

Dude. You won’t ever hear me lamenting about lost paradise–I got to know Mexico too late for that, and I’m not going to begrudge anyone making a living in this edge-of-nowhere state. But a freakin’ Subway? Someone’s a visionary, I guess. I just wonder if it opened before or after the secondary streets, beyond the view of most visitors, got paved (they still weren’t last year).

This comes after a particularly disorienting day of driving around Xpu-Ha beach, which is really only about 200m of sand, but somehow a shocking number of hotels are being built on it, and all the old roads have been rerouted. I didn’t even recognize the main road because it looked so much like a construction site. To go from mega-millions condo construction to middle-of-nowhere dirt track through jungle just by making a right turn…well, it was very confusing. Back up the road, same issue south of Puerto Morelos, except substitute mangrove swamps for jungle. I saw workers’ barracks that looked like movie-set concentration camps (not having seen the real ones, who am I to say?). And I saw so many successful middle-class-Mexican housing subdivisions, I lost count. It’s like Vegas here.

And I hate to admit it, but I think I like Cancun better. I mean, there, the damage is done. It is what it is. Watching this area develop is like dealing with a teenager. What, you’re going to wear that out of the house? You have the chance to make an adult choice, and you pick a Subway?

Well. I also like electricity. The beach hotels in Tulum still don’t really have it, and in a weak moment, I actually paid cold hard cash to stay in one for two nights running. The appeal: going in the water, and not having to get back in the car wet and sandy (yes! I actually went to the beach! More on that later…), and also just staying in one place for two nights straight.

But. Uh. My computer. My camera batteries. My voice recorder sucks the lifeblood from iPod. What was I thinking? The really dumb thing is this hotel–though it is still one of the cheapest with proper screens and a private bathroom–is not cheap. It’s good for the book, though–I am honestly assessing the value of beach accommodations, instead of just poking my head in and saying, Pretty!

Re: beachgoing, have I lamented recently that I never really get to do it? Every time someone says, Wow, you have such a dreamy job!, I want to remind them of this cruel irony. Yesterday morning I checked out of the Club Med without getting in the water, as I was running late, and then by late afternoon I wound up at a place with an extremely unappealing bit of breakwatered-up sand. Cruel, considering I’d actually hustled to get stuff done to allow for beach time.

Anyhoo. Today I went in the water for about ten minutes, as the sun was setting. It was gorge. And I’ll go in again tomorrow morning. And heck, maybe the next. Then I go inland.

And now, for lack of a full restaurant review, I leave you with only this existential question: Does listening to harp music while watching the NBA on a wall-size flat-screen drive you insane? Maybe it was just the espresso talking. But this not-to-be-named Cancun restaurant (oh, fine: Casa Rolandi) was serving up a big daily special of cognitive dissonance, from which I am still recovering.

And thanks to the Subway, I’m not sure I’ve bounced back yet.

The Us Weekly offices are decorated, just as you would hope/expect, with giant photos of celebrities looking ridiculous.

One of these photos is of Jessica Simpson, astride a moped, with a look of horror on her face as the thing zooms out of control beneath her. Her blond locks are flapping in the breeze; her premium denim-ed legs are flying in the air.

For lack of any other point of reference, that’s exactly how I imagine my first experience driving a moped. Not that driving a moped seems particularly hard–it’s just that I’ve never done it. So it was with visions of J. Simp in my mind that I approached the rentadora de motos this morning on Isla Mujeres. I had exactly two hours to cruise the island, and that required more speed than I could manage on a bicycle.

When the guy asked if I’d driven a moped before, I of course said yes…but it was, ah, four years ago. He must hear that crap all the time. Anyway, he gave me the briefing (“Oh, no gears! That’s much easier than the last one I drove!” I dug myself in deeper), and then I hopped on and went scooting off. “Slooooowly!” he shouted behind me.

Well, everything actually went fine until I was around the far side of the island and paused to take some pictures of an interesting house. When I got back on the moped, it wouldn’t start. Freakin’ great. I tried various buttons–the horn, repeatedly; the left blinker–and then finally I remembered I had to hold down the brake while tweaking the starter.

This all must’ve addled me, because then, as I was making a U-turn in the road, I completely lost it when I realized the first car I’d seen in 20 minutes was coming along toward me (at about 10 miles per hour). I did the full J. Simp gasp-and-panic, and drove my moped down the crumbling asphalt and into the sea grapes. The woman in the car helpfully leaned out and said, “You should really be very, very careful when driving that.”

I muttered something about how I’d been just fine for an hour and a half, before she came along, apologized a million times, and drove off…slooooowly.

Fortunately I’ll never see her again.

Other things that happened today: a cabbie named Rafael simultaneously stroked my cheek and asked with unapologetic curiosity, “What happened to your ear?!” I can only imagine what would’ve happened if he’d been reaching for my breast and ran into my sternum scar. I only know how to explain my ear in Spanish (“una infeccion; mi madre me dijo “Cuidado!”, pero…”), but not my heart surgery. But the guy might’ve driven off the road before it came to that. (I know, I know–never sit in the front seat. But whatever–my suitcase was taking up the back seat. And he was nice, for a lech.)

Later, on the public bus to Cancun’s hotel zone: a guy sang powerful songs, accompanied by guitar. One was heart-wrenchingly sad. Another was a rockabilly tune about how he left his girl at ‘el ADO’–the long-distance bus terminal. I felt clever knowing that, because half an hour before, I hadn’t been able to remember this normal word for bus terminal and had been asking drivers about the ‘terminal de autobuses,’ which is a tedious mouthful.

Then, on the same bus: a clown got on. An advertising clown, I think. He had red and yellow hair, a white and pink face, baggy pants, striped socks, and a green balloon-animal microphone. He ranted and raved for several stops. I couldn’t tell what he was talking about, but I’m assuming it was advertising something. The alternative–that he was completely insane–is a little depressing to contemplate. (Also depressing to contemplate: his fate, should he try that shit on the NYC subway. Mexican singers: love ya; Mexican clowns: dead meat.)

Then I arrived at the Club Med. Here is proof that you don’t necessarily get fabulous treatment when you’re staying somewhere on assignment. No one told me that “the village” operates on its own time zone–an hour later than the rest of Cancun, I guess still on Daylight Saving Time–and so I sat in the green-lit bar, reading, for more than an hour while I waited for my reserved dinner time. Then I marched in, promptly at 8:30, only to be told that the kitchen was closed.

As you can imagine, I nearly cried. I wound up with some fried snapper and a chocolate dessert. No greens. No happy-tizers. Ker-sniff. While I was eating, I remembered how I’d smugly reset the clock in my room–“Luxury, my ass,” I was thinking. “That’s some crappy attention to detail right there.”

Then I came back to my room, and my key no longer worked. Double ker-sniff. I hoofed it to reception for help. Maintenance would be along shortly. Forty minutes later, I began typing away here, while the dudes replaced the battery in my door lock.

So, now it’s 11:30pm “village time,” and I guess I’ll take a bath in my ridiculously huge tub. After all that, my room is quite splendid, and I’m looking forward to enjoying the sea view tomorrow morning. I just wish the morning weren’t coming so soon…

Just arrived in Cancun today. Halloween seems to have swept Mexico–a crowd of kids just came by the ice cream shop in Isla Mujeres where I’m using the internet. They were all dressed up as ghosts and witches and pumpkins and chanting ‘Que-re-mos HALL-o-ween!’ Well, the ice cream shop proprietor didn’t have any HALL-o-ween to give them, alas. But she did have some tasty lemon gelato for me–there seems to have been a gelato invasion on Isla M, along with the Halloween invasion.

Things I forgot (remembered, each time, with an audible groan that made my airplane-row-mates look at me askance): an umbrella, my phone charger and maps. All my maps. This will be interesting. Still, it’s better than the year I forgot to renew my driver’s license.

I’m off to bed, even though it’s 8.15. Mexico already switched out of Daylight Saving Time, so I got two hours back when I landed here…but I could barely make it till sundown. I’m running only on all-cane-sugar Coca-Cola now. I anticipate zombie mode any moment.

Since I just wrote my acknowledgments for The Rough Guide to Mexico, which included a shout-out to the extremely kind and helpful staff at Budget Rent-a-Car at the Cancun airport, I also remembered I had this photo. Here’s what the road to/from Hell looks like:

Pretty, huh? Don’t be deceived. Ignore the palm trees and the blue, blue sky. That is a vast, muddy lake spreading up and around the bend in front of the truck for, oh, ten miles, give or take. It’s Hell, my friends, HELL. (If you have no idea what this is all about, read this post from November.)

For everyone who doesn’t happen to know: I am blind in my left eye. This is a pretty recent development, but so far it doesn’t seem to have cramped my style–biking, driving, getting through crowds on the subway, no problem.

But this past Saturday, I realized just exactly how much I can miss. I was on Isla Mujeres, at the ferry dock to go back to Cancun. I’d arrived a little bit early for the 11:30 boat; I bought my ticket in a leisurely fashion, and then wandered over to read some assorted tourist info posted on the wall inside the little wood-frame shelter in front of the dock.

I was about one paragraph into a treatise on whale sharks when in my left ear someone said, “Hablas espanol?” I turned to see this guy right next to me, looking a little miffed that I’d been ignoring him. Yes, I speak Spanish, but I haven’t gotten around to figuring out how to explain that I can’t see you if you sneak up on my left side… Not worth it, in this case, as the guy was just trying to sell me a snorkel tour. I showed him my Cancun ticket and told him I was leaving, so no thanks, and he wandered away.

That was a little clue, of course, that I was not really getting the whole picture at the ferry dock. And I did check my watch and look around to assess the crowd. The boat would be arriving off to my left, I knew, but I figured I’d hear the ruckus caused by everyone boarding, and really, how could I miss a giant super-fast blue-and-yellow ferry?

So I went back to reading about how whale sharks are called “rasp-tooth” in Latin.

Then, just a few minutes later, I looked over to see the ferry pulling away.

Somehow, fifty people had boarded the thing in total silence, and the only person left was the guy who’d try to sell me on snorkeling. That jerk knew I had a ticket to Cancun, but did he happen to point out that the ferry was going? No, of course he didn’t–because he assumed I could see the boat just like everyone else.

So as I’m standing there gaping at the ass of the boat, Sr. Snorkel comes over to me, points at his watch and at the boat, and says, “Exacto! En Mexico, el barco esta exacto!” I swear he said “exacto” about eight times, as though to drive home the point that I was a lazy slug who couldn’t be bothered to get on a boat on time, and that I shouldn’t be assuming that I was in some slack country that didn’t follow schedules.

I just said, “Crap!” about eight times and stomped off.

The next boat left an hour later. I was still in a pretty bitter mood when I got on, but then some American guy kept talking to me, so I couldn’t stew anymore. I ended up giving him a ride to his hotel because it was raining. I didn’t tell him I couldn’t see so well either.

This road stretches from the Tulum beach for about 50km to a village that sits at the very tip of a little strip of land. It is a known Bad Road. Halfway across the Yucatán, people are saying, “I hear they fixed up the road a little,” or “The road is really terrible now.” In Punta Allen, the 400 people who live there greet you by saying, “How was the road?”

There happens to be another way to get there—you take a tedious, rattly drive straight east from the main highway, and then get a boat across the bay. Because you have to stare straight ahead at the same scenery for hours, you get that optical illusion where the sky seems to be constantly receding. But then you get in the boat, and the bay is the palest turquoise and so clear you can see the bottom and the shadow of the boat, and the clouds are scudding across the sky just above the palm trees and so on. That’s where, two years ago, I was actually inspired to exclaim, “I love my job!”

This time, though, I thought I’d better drive The Road.

Even though I had rented the tiniest car available—not even a Dodge Atos, but a knockoff Dodge Atos.

Even though the rainy season still has not ended.

Even though the guy at the entrance to the nature reserve through which the road passes said, “You’re going to Punta Allen in that car?”

But for all the talk about the Bad Road, no one had ever explained to me just exactly in what way it was bad. A couple of times I’ve driven about 3km down the road past the nature reserve gate, and, yes, it was horrible, with these roller-coaster-like potholes, but if you just drove slowly, it was doable.

And I had all the time in the world, for once. I got started even earlier than I’d planned, and it was 10:30am when I passed the skeptical gate guy. I was guessing two, two and a half hours driving down, an hour around town, and then the drive back.

The road was bad. There were potholes, and pretty big puddles. There were a couple of muddy spots. But I kept it in second gear and kept my eye off the clock. But then, a little more than halfway into it, the pretty big puddles started getting bigger, to the point where there wasn’t dry land to keep one side of the car on. Soon, there was barely any dry land in between the puddles. And needless to say, I couldn’t see how deep they were. For some reason, I just kept driving through them, imagining that it couldn’t really get worse.

Finally, about 2km from town, the car stalled and wouldn’t restart. Miraculously, I happened to be on a tiny strip of dry land, rather than up to my axles in mud. After about half an hour, some guys came along and helped push my car out of the road. So I sat there, catching up on note-taking and so on, for a couple of hours while the engine dried out. By then I’d also readjusted my mental calendar to allow for spending the night in Punta Allen. By the next day, the water would be a little less, I reasoned, and I would’ve regained the nerve to drive out. Eventually, the engine started, and I rolled the last little stretch into town, to astonished cries of “You got here in that car?”

But that night the wind battered my little cabin, and it poured rain. When I woke up, the streets of Punta Allen, which had already been filled with puddles, were utterly swamped, just as the road had been. I walked around trying to find someone driving out, and this required walking through muddy water up to my knees—which means I surely managed to contract some horrible tropical flesh-eating worms. The low point was when I nearly stepped in some dog crap on a rare sidewalk, and thus destroyed the fantasy I’d built up about the water being just muddy, and nothing else. I slogged to the one place in town with a telephone and called Peter to whine, very briefly at satellite-phone rates, about my situation.

The story ends happily, though: I was able to secure passage out on the beer truck that happened to be making its monthly delivery, and the rental agency, amazingly, is retrieving the car, at no cost to me. (Although, as a side note, it turns out nothing has changed in Punta Allen, thus making my trip completely pointless.)

Most important, I was able to meet Tamara in Tulum as planned. Now she’s here, and that’s a whole other reason I probably won’t get around to blogging again for a bit.