Tulum
I think I’ve fallen in love with Tulum.
In town, where you’re on the Caribbean coastline of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, there’s blue skies overhead— the kind that artists spend lifetimes trying to recreate.
No uncanny valley here, but—
Tulum is for the Instagrammers.
It’s an extreme sport.
A woman sticking her head out of the sunroof as she pressed play for her travel vlog, palm tree branches swishing dangerously close to her head— no phone.
A couple rock climbing, no climbing a rock surrounded by ocean. Waves crashing for the perfect photo.
Mother Nature knows when to say cheese.
Tulum is full of models. Their runway is a singular paved road laden with potholes, surrounded by mud and jungle. Somehow, despite a brief rain burst showing up unexpectedly to the Friday night party scene, a woman in all white and stilettos navigates, untouched, steadfast to make it to the “place to be seen” nestled in the jungle and stamped with a neon sign archway. Aside from the giraffe-like photo bait, there’s chance to see panthers on the highway, coatis and lizards in the ruins and a dog posing as a stray to join your breakfast and enjoy a bite of slathered toast.
There are a lot of circles in Tulum.
Holes in the road. A round, raised gazebo from which I set my intentions
—intentional holes in the dreamcatchers that dangle on branches and holes that surround trees, the trees with which shopkeepers and restaurant owners decided to leave undisturbed. The opposite of breaking ground, working with Mother Nature.
Tulum is bohemian, full of authentic smiling faces and genuine warmth from the locals.
It’s waking up to the rustling of the palm trees and the pleasant unfamiliar squawking of birds. A funny high-pitched horn from the popcorn cart man, a sound that makes you feel like you’re existing in a paradisiacal cartoon.
Tulum is speaking English, Spanish and Italian and somehow getting by.
Creating an understanding of where you need to go.
El museo.
What would come to be the most beyond-words beautiful, spiritual spaces I’ve ever touched the walls of.
Maybe it was the copal resin burning, a dance of smoke lifted into my breath, up into the skylit space, but I felt something. Native resin is used to keep away mosquitoes, said the kind-eyed tour guide, but in ancient times, its purpose was to cleanse our souls.
Raw Love & Ahau Tulum Entrance
I slide into the back of the taxi, Spanish hip-hop on the radio, windows rolled down and
I feel so free.
Even now, as I sit in my bedroom tapping this keyboard, cooped up inside per governmental orders, the Velvet Underground’s “Ocean” comes on through what can only be seen as a serendipitous act, and I’m right back there. In Tulum. Free swaying on the leather seat, smiling to the heavens, scratching my head and shaking out my hair. A rising feeling in my chest that travels up my throat and swirls my body ‘round with it. I feel lighter. Ready to enter the world differently, able to let things go easier. Achieving a perspective from above.
But I’ll sure carry the pure, unadulterated joy I experienced at the wedding— the bride’s face lighting up, all parties involved vibrating on the same frequency. A dark kiss beneath shelter as the skies opened, imbibing with friends and running down the starlit beach, trading NYC streets for soft sand for a few days.
No sense of time, except relying on the sun’s comfort.
Alaya Tulum, Tulum Beach
