Martine Pagé

Le confort et la diff�rence

Comme j’�tais un peu tann�e des bibittes tropicales, mon amoureux (toujours aussi patient et compr�hensif) et moi avons quitt� notre hutte de Tulum pour une petite chambre d’hotel avec vue incroyable sur la baie de Akumal. Cet endroit est le paradis des plongeurs! C’est une petite communaut� relativement ferm�e, avec des villas superbes sur le bord de la mer. On se croirait parfois dans le sud de la France ou en Grece, quand les villas blanches se d�coupent sur le ciel bleu. Comme nous sommes hors-saison, nous avons r�ussi � trouver une belle chambre pour 50$US la nuit, avec climatisation, merci beaucoup! Je suis vraiment une fille du nord, moi…

Ce matin nous sommes all�s faire de la plong�e en apn�e dans un lagon rempli de beaux poissons. Je me fais de plus en plus brave: il y avait meme des « jellyfish » et je n’ai pas paniqu�! Nous retournons dans l’eau dans une heure environ. Il fait tellement chaud qu’on ne peut pratiquement rien faire de midi a 16h00.

Ce soir c’est la rencontre des blogueurs de Montr�al (YULblog). Nous penserons a vous! Prenez une Corona � notre sant� et au plaisir de vous revoir bientot. Notre beau p�riple se termine dimanche. En « temps mexicain » ca fait beaucoup beaucoup de mananas…

Toi Tarzan, moi Jane

In a previous post, I admitted to being scared of fishes. Well ladies and gentlemen, I am also known for not being too fond of crawling things, and even flying things, for that matter. And this time, we are in the jungle for 5 nights, so I’m in deep trouble. In fact, I interrupted the writing of this post to go « eeek! » and have Blork remove some kind of insect with very long antennae which had just decided to come and check out my blog by crawling on the keyboard.

I know, I know. I say that we are in the jungle, yet I am posting this, so I can’t be too far removed from civilization, right? Well, yes and no. We are staying in a cabana in Tulum, which is right on the ocean, at the edge of a deep jungle, and our funky little hut has no electricity and a lot of holes between the planks that form the walls, so anything can pretty much crawl in there. We just had dinner in a very nice restaurant right on the beach, eating mexican food with our feet in the sand and listening to the music of those two young russian lesbians (they are everywhere), and now we are in the communal cabana where there is a wireless Internet connection, and the Gladiator DVD is playing on a small flat screen tv right behind us. Traveling is freaky in that way, with a mixture of things familiar and completely foreign. Is this because of globalization?

For now, my worry is to get through the first night. I know that I will feel better once I get under the net which covers the bed, with the sound of the ocean all around to soothe me. But it is hot as hell, and I have to get to that dark cabana and walk inside of it, not knowing what I might encounter. Blork is very patient with me, and with the way he tucked in the net around our bed before we left for the restaurant, I suspect he is not too fond of bugs either.

This might sound very silly to you, if you don’t mind crawling things too much, but for (eeek! Blork, who is right next to me, had to stop typing because a GIANT moth just flew over his computer screen and refused to go away!) What was I saying? Yes, for me it’s a big step. See, I’m not afraid of cities. I walk alone late at night where other women are sometimes scared. But when I was a kid, I had terrible fears that made other people laugh. I couldn’t open my closet door in bright daylight if my mother didn’t first come to my room with me. It took me years to get over that one. Who knows if 5 nights will be enough for me to make friends with the bugs around here?

Souhaitez-moi bonne nuit…

Seven days

Sometimes a week is all it takes. Mexico’s heat has muddied my thoughts and I can no longer see my usual worries in a very clear light. The tensions in my body, the little aches and pains of daily life, seem to have gone away. I haven’t been biting my nails, drying my hair, putting make up on. I am a different person and my life in Montreal belongs to somebody else. There is the restaurant we’re going to in half an hour, then the bags to pack for the four hour bus ride to Tulum tomorrow. There is the book I’m reading, the three showers I take every day, the swims, the search for a shady sidewalk, my skin, which is getting darker every day. The little kids stare at us, straight in the eyes, serious and inquisitive. I give them a smile, just to see their beautiful faces light up. I don’t know what interests them so much in the person they are looking at. I catch my dark skin reflection in a window and I want to smile back at this stranger as well.

I often hesistate to take a trip when I only have a week of vacation, because it seems too complicated for such a short period of time. But the power of a single week can be amazing, if only to travel outside of yourself.