Tulum gets better.  We take the bus that the weary traveller lays on to the beach and spend the morning doing nothing in the sun.  Martin stays on the beach in the afternoon and I head back into town to sort out some accomodation for claire and damian and do some laundry, buy some more fish!  Later while cooking we get talking to a Slovenian couple and a couple of English girls, Willow and Jessica, making their way around the world.  Martin has an early night and I end up spending the evening with a charming italian woman called Michaela  who we first bumped

They say you can see 7 shades of blue in the carribean sea off the Yucutan coast.  From the veranda of our beach cabana we practise counting them.  The sky is clear, the sun merciless.  The sea so warm its like taking a bath.  The sand, soft, white coral.  Our hammocks swing in the slight breeze, just enough to cool the sweat from our glowing bodies.

The Jungle has one more surprise for us before we leave Palenque.  We spend the day packing up, taking it real easy.  We head into town for provisions and then hang out at El Panchan til its time  to catch the coach.

 

We arrive in Palenque at 8am and immediately notice a difference.  More travellers in a confined space than we have seen since we got to Mexico.  We are on the well travelled tourist route now.

After standing around looking dazed for 10 minutes we make out way to the Collectivo- the minibus that runs back and forth from Palenque to the ruins, stopping on the way at El Panchan.  There is a mix of camping and cabanas there and it seems to be the place to go.

The overnight coach from Xalapa gets us into Palenque at 8.30 in the morning. It´s lush and green and I immediately feel right at home. It reminds me of Mwanza in the rainy season. There are more wazungu, sorry gringos, around than I have seen for a while and the locals studiously ignore us. We quiz a couple of travelers for details of the best places to stay and then head for breakfast. Plenty of fruit, fried plaintains and tamales. I´m going to like it here ;-)

Fabiola appoints herself as our personal tourist guide.  She has postponed starting work as a tour guide on one of the buses so she can spend time with us.  On Saturday we go out to one of the clubs. There are photo's of martin and I in wrestling masks.  We drink and dance and then go riding around in the back of a car.  Young people all over the world it seems find places where they can park up and smoke and drink without their parents noticing- although in Mexico the dependence on parents seems to last longer than in England.

It´s funny how the theatre that we make can mean different things to different people.  When we performed "The Victim" many years ago in Slovenia the press said Paul Levy´s play was "written on the skin of the people" 

So after 24 hours on bus and plane we finally roll into Zacatecas.  Luckily my journey finishes in the evening so with a couple of beers and an early night I wake up this morning none the worse for wear and well adjusted to the new time zone.  No jet lag and about from the occassional feeling of light headedness, no altitude sickness either.

I've been meaning to collect together all the various pictures and programs I had saved from Re:action Theatre days and it ended up looking like this:

http://www.ideasinmotion.co.uk/Dpl/content/brief-history-reaction-theatre

I was struck by just how many people were involved over the 10 years we were running- and also by how many of those people I still know.  That's a good thing right? :-)

Some of you may remember last year I went out to Tanzania for a few months to visit some friends I hadn't seen for 15 years-  I ended up finding my nursery school teacher as well!

Well I've just moved that blog over to this one and while I was at it I thought I'ld create a way for you to read the posts in the right order!  (There were complaints, what can I say!)

You'll find The Bujora Diaries here:

http://www.ideasinmotion.co.uk/Dpl/content/bujora-diaries