Friday, 01 October 2004 | Blender

[Valladolid, Mexico]

While the town of Tulum seemed to be built along one main highway (with shops and sidewalks mirroring each other on either side), Valladolid, in contrast, is more like a grid. Instead of opening itself as if it had been unzipped, the town is composed of narrow streets and sidewalks that bend around brightly painted and chipped concrete walls.

Fewer people speak English here, and tourists aren't especially prevalent. (Actually there haven't been all that many tourists anywhere, as it seems to be the off-season, but it is clear which towns are prepared for tourists and which consider them a novelty.) In Valladolid, we get stared at a lot.

[Today Martin showed me a picture he'd taken of me showing some children the LCD screen on my camera. (They really like it when you take pictures of them and then show them the digital results.) Despite all of the sun I've absorbed since I've been here (I've accidentally become the tannest I've been since high school), I looked incredibly WHITE standing next to those kids (and tall and light-haired, and shaped differently). Sometimes I forget, since I'm the one in that tall, white body.]

Here, as with other towns we've visited, whole families pile onto a single bicycle, a moped, or a "trici-taxi," which is a three-wheeled bike with a giant cart on the front. Young kids, Catholic school girls, tiny Mayan women in white dresses, and men with wide-brimmed hats walk or pedal by, or lean against bright Crayola walls. Little boys play games that remind me of horseshoes, and teenagers hold hands on park benches.

There are rows of shops on every block, and people selling things on the sidewalk in front of the shops -- fruit and nuts they've grown or bagged, or clothes and handkerchiefs they've sewn. Music is always playing from somewhere (some of it unpredictable, like Duran Duran). People are working and playing and living all of the time, and practically everywhere I look could be a scene from a painting. For every picture that I've taken, there are hundreds that I've framed in my head.

I think I could live here, for a few months at least, if it didn't mean completely disrupting my life in New York.

...

A couple nights ago we walked in on a party at a restaurant near the town square. As we stood at the door, the musician at the front of the room welcomed us in English and told us to have a seat. He was young (like the rest of the party) and was playing bongos. As he sang, the red, yellow, and blue lights of the karaoke machine lit up his face and cast a giant shadow of him on the wall to his back. The stage was kind of pitiful, but he was talented; he sounded like some of the Spanish music I have on vinyl.

We watched the partiers like we were watching a documentary; they danced and sang (taking over the musician's role) and laughed. We chatted with our waiter a little, had a couple of drinks, and left an hour or so later. As we walked out the door, the musician spoke into the microphone with a thick accent, saying, "Good night, my friends, good night." It sounded melodramatic enough to be really awesome.

Last night we returned, and our waiter made us a rose out of a napkin, a red marker, and a straw.

Standing out can be good, you see.