Cancun ... then home

It's easy to hate Cancun -- the "hotel zone" at least. Don't get me wrong. Cancun is fun -- mind-numbing fun. There's as much glitz and glamour here as there is in Vegas. And Vegas doesn't have the beaches. Cancun is so pastiche Americana that you hardly know that you've left the USA. It's safe. It's cheap. It's miles of sandy, bronzed pleasure.

But we were in the hotel zone for 90 minutes, and it made my soul hurt. Perhaps this is because we had spent two weeks talking about the contradictions of tourism -- all of which are front and center in the hotel zone. Perhaps this is because we first went to the city of Cancun where the service workers live. Here we saw a different story than the glitz and glamour. A story of working 20 hours a day and making around $10 a day on average, if lucky. A story of people who don't have city water during the day, so the tourists in the hotel zone can have it. That's right. Miguel told us that his sister (who lives in the city) has to store water each night for the daylight hours because the water to this city is cut off to supply the hotel zone. Can you imagine? 

This is the Cancun tourists never see. It's the Cancun they don't want to see either because they/we are on holiday in Cancun. We have enough problems at home, so the story goes, so please don't bother me with problems somewhere else. 

It's easy to hate Cancun, and it's easy to deride the tourists who stay there. Tourism scholarship has done this for about 40 years now. But, hopefully, this class has taught us to take a step back from this knee-jerk criticism also. Hopefully, we can humanize these tourists too and not just the hosts who serve them/us. Hopefully we can recognize the hypnotic power of the media gaze that constructs these places, a gaze that calls us to the beach, to relaxation, to pleasure (without concern for those who must scrape by to provide us this pleasure.) 

This is not to say that we should not critique Cancun. We should. In fact, we must if tourism is to change. Through this critique, we must find avenues for critical tourist practice. We must find spaces for humanizing dialogue. We should get out of the "hotel zone" to where the people who serve us live. We must begin to understand the price of pleasure, the cost of our relaxation.

 But we must not wag the elitist finger at the mass tourists who get away to Cancun. Doing so neglects our own complicity in the problems of tourism. Doing so misses an opportunity for critical, humanizing dialogue.

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So, this ends our trip. We've all made it home. We return to our lives. The liminal space of our tour in Mexico has now closed. The blogging is not quite done (stay tuned for links to student photo essays), but the trip is.

Hopefully, this trip has given us pause from the perpetual movement between home and away. Hopefully, it has disrupted our normal rhythms of travel. Hopefully, our gazing has turned into more embodied practice, more critical practice, more humanizing and sustaining practice.

I hope.

Hasta luego....

I have a bit of catching up to do today. My apologies for skipping yesterday.

We spent the day at the Reserve and at the Casitas in Oxcutzcab. I encourage you to check out the facilities, projects and possibilities at "Millsaps South." There are some amazing things going on down here that work across academic disciplines. In the future, we will be looking for ways to integrate COMM students in media-related projects and research. 

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Last night, students presented their photo essays. In a word -- brilliant. I was amazed that these students put together such thoughtful work under challenging technological and logistical conditions. I hope to post the essays or links to the essays soon. Until then, you'll just have to take my word for it -- brilliant! 

The discussion after each presentation was thoughtful and constructive. All in all, this was a powerful moment -- at least for this professor, but I think for the entire class. 

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We transferred back to Puerto Morelos today -- the place where we began. When we rolled into town, this quiet fishing village had transformed into a bustling tourist spot -- blaring music, traffic, and crowds. It's as if Cancun had expanded 20 miles in two weeks. There's a fishing tournament in town, and it is quite a party.

I wonder if the residents in this town will remember us and note how much we have changed also. Have we transformed like the place has?

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I like ending a trip where it began. Doing so allows us to take a new perspective on a familiar place -- a perspective that has been shaped by two weeks of powerful experiences, of conversation, of building relationships, of reading, studying and discussing tourism. 

Tonight, we mingle in the city. Tomorrow, we visit the contradictions of Cancun and have our last class on the beaches of Puerto Morelos. We are winding down, preparing to return home.

Hasta luego...

Until then, enjoy these photos from Uxmal.

You could say that this was the day that never ends. Miguel had the hotel send wake-up calls at 5 a.m. We left at 6 a.m. I think we covered 700 km today with a stop at Uxmal. The site is amazing (pics will come later), but, let's be honest, we were dog tired by that point. We arrived at Kiuic around 7 p.m., had some dinner (amazing!), a sit in the pool, and here I am, 18 hours from that wake-up call, blogging.

We'll have to rethink this leg of the trip. It's a bit long for our sanity. However, the trip to Palenque was definitely worth the extra miles.

So, Kiuic .... I'm blogging at a place that is completely off the grid -- not a power line to be found for miles. It's amazing what some solar panels and a satellite connection will do.

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That's all I have, folks. Must get some sleep soon. But wait, we're sleeping in hammocks, something I don't do well, so I fear sleep will not come quickly.

Nonetheless, I hope to have a bit more energy tomorrow.

Hasta luego....

There's not much to report today. We went to a beautiful waterfall in the mountains near Palenque. The rest of the day, I assume, was spent on some rest before a very long day tomorrow and (hopefully) some catching up on travelogs from the class participants.

We head to Uxmal tomorrow before going to Kiuic tomorrow evening. Uxmal is a UNESCO cultural heritage site, so we will continue to ponder the rhetorical/material power of this marker and the notion that we all "own" these sites. At Kiuic, we will consider the close (and complicated) relationship between archaeology and tourism in the Yucatan.

hasta luego....

Palenque. Imagine lush rainforest, the howl of a howler monkey and the calls of the toucan. Then add some of the most intricate Mayan ruins in the Mayan world.

In a word, beautiful.

After a long drive, we made it to the state of Chiapas and to Palenque. On the way, Miguel took us on a coastal road to a town where he spends holiday. It's a beautiful off-the-beaten-path coastal town. As we made it through the town square, Miguel brought the van to a hault, rolled down his window and started talking rapidly to an approaching woman. She came up and kissed him.

This was family, and, we must assume, this was Miguel's "real" Mexico -- a somewhat mythical, ambiguous reference he has promised us since we landed in Cancun.

As we approached Palenque, the rugged mountains approached. These aren't rugged like the Rockies -- barren and cold above the tree line. These were lush and jagged, 7,000 feet above sea level. This is coffee growing region. For those of you who know me, I am now in my own little slice of heaven.

But back to Palenque. This site has produced some of the most significant "finds" of Mayan history. A royal tomb, intricate and well-preserved glyphs, fantastic buildings. 

This is also a place where we discussed spiritual/New Age tourism. Palenque is significant because one of the leaders of the New Age fascination with the Mayan calendar, Jose Arguelles, believes he is now channeling Pakal  (the king of Palenque). Jose sort of began (or at least popularized) the Mayan calendar back in 1987 with the Harmonic Convergence. 

If you're wondering what all the hubbub is about with the calendar, here's a brief summary. We are nearing the end of the Mayan Long Count, the end of the 13th Baktun. This particular "count" is not "the end," but it is the end of an era that began 1.8 million days ago in 3114 B.C.E. For New Age believers, the stars, spirits, energies, etc. will align this December 21 (the winter solstice) to usher in the new age. Throw in a good dash of quantum physics, "ancient" mysticism, hallucinogens and you have the chief components of New Age spiritualism. This is, of course, a gross generalization, but this is a blog post, not a journal article. If you want more on this, let me know. I'll send more of it your way. 

Anyway, back in 1987, we entered into the final 25-year cycle, which comes to a close this December. This is a big deal for New Age believers. Many will be coming places like Palenque and other sacred spots around the globe to channel energy in an effort to align human consciousness with the universe.

We'll be watching a documentary, 2012: Science or Superstition. I am eager to see how the students process this system of beliefs, rituals and tourist practices.

Here's some photos of the day.

Hasta luego...

We've seen the sun. We've been in the sand. Today, we got to the "cult of death" part of the trip in Pomuch. This is an experience that is at once shocking to our sanitized Western ways of knowing death and fascinating in its syncretic complexity. Part Maya, part Catholic -- wholly sacred and intimate.

I have mixed feelings about this part of the trip (big surprise). On the one hand, encountering one of the most intimate of human rituals (death and burial) affords opportunity for empathetic and humanizing intercultural exchange. On the other, we seemed like interlopers, voyeurs even -- tourists. Yes, we asked permission to be there. Yes, we treated the space with the respect it deserves. But should we even be there? 

Clearly I answer this question in the affirmative, but it is still a question worth asking. And I am still not completely satisfied that I've come to the correct conclusion. For now, it is enough that we seek and receive permission from the keepers of the place. Shallow rationalization? Perhaps.

This experience is also challenging for students. We encountered bodies in various states of decay in cramped space. We heard stories about ritual bathing of the dead, which include using the bath water to cook food for other parts of the death ritual. 

In short, this is an exhausting, fascinating, troubling, promising, honoring, shocking experience.

From Pomuch we moved to the coastal city of Campeche. Tomorrow, we take the long trip to Palenque. That trip begins at 6 a.m. in the morning, so I leave you with some photos of the days events.

Hasta luego....

We're in Merida today. Yesterday, we went to the beach at Progresso for a bit of mid-trip R&R. On this trip, we discussed the extent to which tourism is a form of imperialism, and we discussed some existential philosophy as it relates to authenticity and tourism. This is some heady stuff, but, yet again, the students impressed me with their eagerness to engage and in their ability to wrestle with and grasp complicated material. Good times (at least from my perspective)!

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Today, we have a free day to get caught up on laundry and to explore the city. Also, let's be honest, we all need a free day to get some space from one another as we prepare for the second half of our trip (with some significant travel days in the van).

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We are moving into my favorite part of the trip -- the time to discuss New Age/spiritual tourism and its fascination with the Mayan Calendar. I am not a New Age traveler myself. However, I study this phenomenon, so this is an opportunity for my scholarship to combine with pedagogy. For any of you who are wondering what gets a college professor excited, this is one of those things!

Hasta luego....