Getting Lost

Woke up at 5 again. Not having any real plans, I tried to sleep in but couldn't. Got up to my shave n shower routine. Now its past eight. Ive sat n smoked n pondered the strong but passing urge to go to Chichen Itza. My heart isn't in it.I know it. It would be some tourism gong show Disneyland hell. Plus, I can't climb n play on them. Disappointing. I've had a good look at everyone's face here at the hostel now. All these stylish young folks with the fancy shiny packsacks are actually quite ugly in the face to me. But they've got the right clothes to match their attitudes. Fuck it, time to pack up my sack, return my sheets and roll out.

Six hours to kill and I'm craving coffee and a sit down in a watching place, take a mystery route to the market. It may just be that my shorts are just offensively sexy, but I'm getting some hostile faces in spite of my almost too gratuitously gracious greeting politeness. The Spanish in my memory bank has been unleashed and... Maybe if I throw down some Ustedes', maybe they'll stop looking at my crotch? No... I forget/don't understand that I'm sexy here in spite of the things that make me not interesting at home. Whiteness, fatness, and dark hair. Here I'm a giant, a novelty Racquel Welch Barbarella, and dressed almost as little.

I walked a weird route, aiming for the back of the convent where I hoped to visit with the Iguana who was sunning himself from his stoop in the middle of the old stone (stolen stone) wall. I got a lot of hard looks, and get why. I love the proud history (and currency) of this proud place.

This Spanish ass came to take the city- these warrior fucken kickass Mayans fucked him off for his entire life to the next town up. The Spanish kept trying, and this same Spanish ass' son returned a generation later and took this Mayan city called Zaci by violence and psychotic force. He destroyed their temples, burned their libraries, and tortured the people in disgusting ways- lopping off the breasts of women and tossing them chained into cenotes with stone weight for fucks sakes. This guy and the Franciscans enslaved people and made them use their temples' stones to build the new cathedral and fortress. At least a hundred years of weird and gruesome torture, indentured, hopeless work for no pay on the sisal farms, with horrible fates for being caught escaping, and these awesome people had taken enough. They rose up and slaughtered these disgusting overlords- running them out of town and reclaiming their city. Balls! What is curious to me is how fervently Christ has been embraced here in spite of its beginnings. What is great to me is that although the Spanish name of Valladolid stuck to the maps; everywhere the signs on the businesses say, Zaci.

Beautiful perfumery window.

 On my walk were the usual pastel streetfronts, metalworked windows, doors and gates and Virgin Mary/Madonna/ Our Lady of Gaudeloupe or Candelaria shrines. There were also some ancient stone walls the way there are sometimes white picket fences where I'm from. Maybe from the same time as the church. I was lost near it somewhere, east of it. I imagined all of these stones belonging to some amazing Mayan city, maybe there lay now where they have from the beginning? There were a couple big dogs on the one very quiet street I was on. I talked nice to them and smiled and they switched their big balls away... and I walked on and the street became gravel and I felt a little more lost. I knew I was in between the supermarket and the convent somewhere. There was a calle 53 sign and then just more gravel lanes. Lots of PRI slogans around me on the walls. This place was not meant for my consumption. Behind a stick/post fence and low stone wall were some very gigantic old palms, and five or six traditional Mayan homes.
Now, I'm working hard and trying to educate myself about First Nations politics and worldviews. I recognize the Indigenous Peoples of the world as living people with contemporary lives that are convergent with time. But this throwback is not for tourist eyes, not in a neighborhood surrounded by PRI graffiti on so many of the walls in this neighborhood. I knew that meant to keep the whiteys money and bad nosy tourist mojo away from here, but here it was, here I was. People living in homes that are culturally appropriate to the area, if not completely out of time. And I thought that was a beautiful thing, as I popped out into the candy colored colonial street that is marked as the city's main attraction.

Wander past an open gate, and have to take four steps straight back and poke my head into this unmarked gallery to marvel at these things:

Sitting for coffee in the square, remembering the dream I woke up yelling from. Embarrassing when you're sleeping in a dorm, but oh well. God Damn sedative withdrawal! Those things are poison! Now I know. So...    
...          

uh... 

...oh my god. Is there a bug in my boom boom shorts? I swear that there is something alive squirming around right in the folds of me. I don't exactly not like it, but what is it? How do I deal with this in such a busy, catholic, public lonchetaria? Why didn't I wear protective panties...

So... What if you grew up in a village where you didn't like the colors or patterns repped by your people? I can imagine this being a major teenage issue. Our colors were green and orange, what was I supposed to do? I knew some of the girls from the purple-black village from in the market, maybe I could catch her brother's eye?

So it's noon and the plaza is a mess of horns, constant traffic circling, circling, car stereos, boom boxes, sirens, horns, people hawking shit, why are there so many balloon sellers? I guess I could go to the free museum. I guess I really should remove this cockroach from my panties, I'm getting grossed the fuck out.

High noon and not enough shadows, so I will stay right put, roaches and all. Unless it hurts it isn't exactly a bad thing. ? Only action in four or five months so I'll roll with it. or maybe it's just my imagination wishing for some panty action. God damn. Ah, clouds, now I can roll and jump from shadow to shadow.

Lonch-lady-land.

Two hours in the luncheteria watching people and wondering about the peculiar feeling in my pants. I was so craving an espresso and disappointed as I watched the sweet elder lady make a machined plastic cup of instant powder after another. It turned out okay and I enjoyed it anyway. My favorite view was of the two older people who had tables at the street front, under the arches out in front of their store booths. The older man was selling ropas y bluses, the lady with all sorts of juices. She had all these colorful fresh fruits, yet sat at her table with her knitting or crocheting or whatever drinking a bottle of coke. He sat at his table smoking, with the newspaper folded tightly to a page. Not one sideways glance across the tables between them in two hours. I figured they were either longtime enemies, or married a long time. There were these two dogs too, a scratchy dude with big balls, gnawing his front legs, and a peppy lil mama with bright eyes and alert ears.

Dog friends.

haha, Mexican Luke!

Went to the museum that told me the history of the town and the Yucatan. Did my best to interpret the signs and diagrams that were all en espanol. More details on what I'd seen and read before. Found some leggings that I hope aren't one of those large-for-tiny-people sizes. Looking forward to the cool of the mountains and more bike riding. Few more hours until the busride...

Boarding the bus, everyone crosses themselves as they pass this. So I do too. I wouldn't want to be the one heathen who jinxes the ride!