I have spent the last few days lying on a stretch of pristine, untouched beach. The weather has been phenomenal; hot and sunny, with a lovely onshore breeze. I have learnt an important lesson about sunscreen placement. I have showered in salt-water, and sharedmy simple seaside cabaña with a friendly metre-long iguana. It's wet season, so at nights (and yes sometimes during the day) you can sit and watch an electrical storm play out over the Caribbean. I am on holiday, and it is amazing.
As I dozed in the sun on the beach yesterday, I listened to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. It was a stereotypical, easy choice. He is from Hawai'i, but he just sounds tropical - all ukeleles and harmonies. It was relaxing and easy and just what I wanted for my first few days of holiday. If The Ethnomusicologist were here, he'd accuse me of being one of those white middle class people enjoying a middle class holiday and listening to world music. The Ethnomusicologist is not here, and he probably forgets it was him who gave me this album in the first place.
As I dozed in the sun on the beach yesterday, I listened to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. It was a stereotypical, easy choice. He is from Hawai'i, but he just sounds tropical - all ukeleles and harmonies. It was relaxing and easy and just what I wanted for my first few days of holiday. If The Ethnomusicologist were here, he'd accuse me of being one of those white middle class people enjoying a middle class holiday and listening to world music. The Ethnomusicologist is not here, and he probably forgets it was him who gave me this album in the first place.
Besides, it wasn´t until I´d left beautiful deserted Tulum and made my way back up the coast to Playa del Carmen that I realised how empty, quiet, and non-stereotypical our break in Tulum had been. Playa del Carmen is the exact opposite - it is loud and it is full of people and everyone is shouting "hey blondie!" at me and trying to sell me something - from a sombrero to a hammock (the "matrimonial" hammock, evidently somehow different from the plain "double hammock") to tequila to all sorts of other useless stuff. I have just found out that our next destination has no electricity, so I am trying to buy a torch.... It is, evidently, the one thing not to be bought in Playa del Carmen. So I am destined to be that girl fumbling about in the darkness for the next two days.
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