Riviera Whiplash
Thirty years ago, there wasn’t much in Tulum. It was a small town about a kilometer inland from the Caribbean coast. Miles of white sand beach stretched, largely uninhabited, between a centuries old ruin, and a marshy bio-reserve.
Today, that empty space has been filled in. All along the beach dozens of hotels have sprung up in a commercial strip. The whole region is still clearly in the process of adjustment, trying to find its footing amongst an unprecedented influx of Americans and their money.
Perhaps Tulum will find its balance one day. Maybe it will even happen before the Yucatan Peninsula erodes into the Atlantic Ocean. Until then, Tulum is a land of glorious contradiction.
It’s a light blue ocean in front of you, rolling freely under the golden sun all the way to the far horizon, waves washing up the gentle slope of the beach; and a crumbling two lane road behind you, traffic backed up around the bend. The gas fumes mix with the sea-breeze. The taxi’s horns with the crashing surf.
It’s a place where you sit down at a seaside restaurant, and realize that the price for each small taco is the same that you paid for a full breakfast in the next town over.
It’s row after row of hotels that hire men to go out on the beach every morning and rake away the seaweed. Billed as “Eco Chic”, they’ve figured out it’s better to rake until there’s only the chic left.
It’s bright sunlight from picture perfect sunrise to golden hued sunset, and still so much humidity that if you hang up dry clothing, it comes back wet.
It’s a sign with an Indian proverb on one side, and Spice Girls lyrics on the other.
It’s a wellness spa in the morning, and a high end club after five.
It’s beach vendors hawking oversized woven dreamcatchers, while across the street, a sleek glass-fronted shop sells the same thing for four times the price. The efficient market hypothesis smashed to pieces against the sun drenched coast.
It’s a silent retreat next door to a singles party put on by Bumble. Skull shaking music at four in the afternoon.
It’s a man shouting “Weed! Cocaine! Weed! Cocaine!” On one side of the street and a cop standing passively on the other side, armed, it would appear, to take down a grizzly bear. I didn’t even know that they made bandoliers for shotgun shells.
Tulum can be a relaxing beachside vacation. It can be a confusing jumble of new age commercialism and laid back beach party. It can be somehow unbelievably beautiful, and unbelievably tacky all at once. What it can’t be is boring.
