White sands, tired eyes

Mexico is deliciously warm. "It´s 82 degrees in Cancun," said the flight assistant as we landed in our very Mexican (read: slightly dodgy) aeroplane. It´s also humid. I´m in Tulum, south of Cancun on the Yucatan, and tomorrow I go to Belize. Bug spray! I forgot to put on my bug spray! Damn.

I think I will go to bed at eight o´clock again. Oh, sleeping ridiculously early. Tulum is filled with hostels, and my hostel is filled with very skinny very brown backpackers. I wonder if I will be that skinny and brown by the time I´m back in the States. I don´t know if it would suit me.

My Spanish is really poor. After some initial successes, I feel weighed down with my inability to say a thing. Tulum is an interesting place. So many white people. In an interesting way. Not a full out touristy way, just a lot of backpackers, which has got me thinking about backpackering, and how it relates to tourism.

I spent today lying on the most picture perfect beach. White sand, palm trees, warm, warm water. Then at 4pm a storm rolled in. You could see it coming and it was amazing, a literal wall of cloud eating up the blue sky. I ran for the bus stop, putting my head down as the wind started up. Riverlets of sand ran across the beach between my feet. It got too windy to look up at all, and then it started to rain. I huddled under the eave of a palm frond covered restaurant with two backpackers and an middle-aged American alcoholic, who complained that his taxi had been stolen by two young mothers.