It’s not all good or bad (or the time I faced the mouth of hell and survived)
It’s weird when I’m traveling. I feel this pressure to make my life seem greater than it is and do all these cool, interesting things (even when I don’t want to). Because I feel like that’s what people expect. But my life when I’m traveling isn’t different from my life at home. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it’s amazing. Sometimes it’s both at the same time.
I had an experience recently that was such a great example of this contrast. I’m currently staying in Valladolid, this charming small city between Merida and Cancun. Because I work from 10am to 6pm, I have to get up early if I want to do something. So one day I decided to bike to nearby Cenote Oxman at 8:00 am, which according to Google was just a 15 minute bike ride from my hostel.
I’m not a big fan of biking, but it’s mostly flat in the area so I figured it would be easy. Of course, I got a little lost on the way, but I ran into these two older women who told me they were going to same place. So we tacitly agreed to go together.
At one point as we were riding on this dirt road, I realized we had made a wrong turn and told the women I was going back. The women decided to go ahead because they could still get to our final destination the way we were going. So we split up and I go back only to realize that the road Google Maps originally wanted me to take was blocked by this locked gate. Annoyed at having to turn around twice, I go back to catch up with the women. But I run into them coming the other way.
They tell me there is this disgusting trash dump ahead and they came back to avoid it. But once we realized that we’d have to go all the way back to town or push through the dump, we decided to go ahead.
I figured these women were just being oversensitive and it probably wasn’t that bad. I WAS WRONG.
It was this giant trash landfill the size of a couple football fields. Most of the trash was to the right side of the road, but there was also piles of the trash was just spilling out onto the dirt road. Vultures the size of a second grader were swooping above our heads and sitting on nearby trash piles like guardians of hell. The smell…..cannot be described. I did my best not to breathe. There was only a thin, rocky road free of trash to pass through. And I just put my head down and pedaled like my life depended on it.
When we finally got past the trash heap and onto the main road, it was only a two minute bike ride to this beautiful estate with another magical cenote.
The Magical Cenote Oxman
After we arrived, I got ready quickly and had a few minutes by myself in the cenote. It felt so special and peaceful. And I was also a one minute drive from a disgusting landfill. The beauty and the horror. And I couldn’t help but laugh at how life works sometimes.
Sometimes unpleasant things can’t be avoided and maybe it makes me appreciate the beautiful things more. That said, I didn’t feel the need to bike back the way I came. I took the long way home and didn’t see any trash landfills or child-size vultures. I had enough unpleasantness for one day.
