Tulum turtles

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Sargassum occupied everything. It spread across the beach creating a barrier of algae that in some cases rotted in the sand itself.. in my cabin, attached to the sea, the smell of dry and dying sea came in at night. He did it by beating, like the waves, and then I fell asleep doing accounts with my yesterday.

I returned to the Mexican Caribbean 13 years after my first time. My brother and I landed in Chetumal, a city attached to Belize, where the feeling is that the news on the front page of the newspapers is that one more day has changed on the calendar. Thence, drive, we went to Tulum, to some rustic cabins built on the white sand and less than a kilometer in a straight line from the old and imposing Mayan ruins that I visited more than a decade ago.

Time changes everything, until last

And then I discovered that in addition to the fact that the algae arrived in thousands of tons from the sea, hiding even the waves, time changes everything, until last. It was probably slow and no one noticed.. Simply they, those from there, They were adding cement and asphalt to their surroundings and one day they discovered that the colors changed on their beaches and paths..

I remembered an almost virgin beach and I had before me, Without that changing, it is still a special and beautiful place., hotels, stores 24 hours and restaurants. Now it was a special place, yes, perhaps prepared for too many people.

In the ruins of Tulum the shock was greater. In my head there were two Mayan castles and a virgin beach of flour on my feet and green and blue paint in my eyes.. It was a clear figure, invariable, to which I returned during this more than a decade of absence, ensuring from afar, in conversations with travelers, that “the ruins of Tulum, despite tourism, “They are one of the special things on the planet.”.

The mass of visitors neither get lost when entering nor delay leaving

And they are, but they are less so now, or they are less so for me. Because the bus parking lot where I got off didn't have grab bars or numbered spaces.; or within, in the old mayan city, I remember so many corridors outlined so that the mass of visitors neither gets lost when entering nor takes a long time to leave.; Not even on the beach were there stairs with railings and steps that connected what was above and what was below..

Not, then a path descended, you took off a shirt and took a bath, as if two Mayan towers could belong to you and that sea turned into six colors were an immense and private pool. The sea remains, the castles too and my gaze, among so many people, it was diluted.

In Chicen Itza, the great Mayan city for having that perfect pyramid, Peeping, through which feathered serpents descend on the solstices, the feeling was different. Or maybe it was more toned down. It was Lalo's fault., a hilarious guide who almost made his explanations more anecdotal and interesting than the crowded surroundings.

Merchants have been allowed to enter the sacred precinct.

Time in my head also moved some things here. You can no longer climb to the top of Kukulkan, something that those who suffer from vertigo will appreciate since the descent was in free fall due to the steepness and narrowness of the steps., and merchants have been allowed to enter the sacred precinct.

The second fact, something increasingly common, I also saw it recently in some Asian temples, It is part of that universal maxim that mystique is moldable to business.. Lalo told us that the concessionaire of a hotel began to sell crafts inside and that the rest of the street vendors decided to camp overnight with their souvenirs also in the shadow of the ruins., attached to their clients, so that there was no conflict of interest or advantages.

And no one has explained to them that ruins should not become a flea market because the politician who must decide to throw them out lives off their votes and the tourist is always a bird of passage who perhaps, in the worst case, Make a criticism on your travel blog that your brothers have not confessed that they do not read it either.

I guess it's not very normal to return to a place thirteen years later, tourism almost never knows about reunions (The thing is that I live in this country now.). Traveling consumerism forces us to always visit new places, new stamps in the passport.

There are things in nature that almost, put a thousand quotes to almost, they do not depend on man

But then something happened that also, like a communicating vessel, It happened on both occasions and this time it did leave me with good feelings., the turtles of Tulum. It was at sunset that we saw people crowded on the beach that we approached and discovered that, luckily, There are things in nature that almost, put a thousand quotes to almost, they do not depend on man: there were dozens of small turtles, new born, going down to the beach. The same thing I saw ago 13 years, then at night, walk back along the beach to the hotel.

The turtles crashed into the sargassum wall and had a hard time climbing through the algae and reaching the sea.. Then we took them and put them in the water and the waves threw them back against the vegetal spider web that has taken over the entire Riviera Maya. (It is not known where this plague came from, It is believed that perhaps from a North American company). Some disappeared after a few attempts and others, even, were dying of exhaustion.

The next night the scene was more sublime, while we had dinner in an empty restaurant, in an empty cove, We saw a huge turtle arrive and begin to dig a nest next to a deck chair and under a straw umbrella to lay its eggs.. almost at the same time, two nests were broken and there were hundreds of turtles, some disoriented by artificial lights, who wandered along the beach without finding the sea.

Good feelings collided with turtles that were crushed, footprints

Soon a group of people began taking turtles, to take them to the waves, to push them beyond the sargassum. And the good feelings collided with turtles that were crushed, footprints, among so many people who tried to help, not always with good judgment. Other babies were thrown almost like stones into the waves after dozens of attempts in which the sea returned them all to the shore.. It was then necessary to send them further away and a man insisted on throwing them like pitchers.. Some scenes in which the desire greatly exceeded the effectiveness of the help were almost comical..

But in the end they were there, they returned to their house, as their mothers did and as their daughters will do. Nature in a cycle, between sun loungers and umbrellas, punching his way through. That huge turtle didn't give a damn about our presence, spawned with astonishing calm. Not far from there is the city of Akumal., which in Mayan means place of turtles. That was not changed, nevertheless, still in 1000 years despite the man. They hunt them, they trade with them, they eat them… and they always return to their beach in Tulum.

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