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.