Playa del Carmen Human Connections

A white van slowed beside me on the road near Centro, and the man at the side door called out a single word, again and again. I smiled and kept walking. The van kept pace. He kept calling. It took me three days to understand that he was asking where I was going and offering me a seat. The colectivo vans stop for anyone who lifts a hand, and the word is the name of where the van is headed. I have since stopped being shy about it, and the van stopped following me.

A lizard was sitting on the park sign in Parque La Ceiba on Thursday afternoon. A man on the next bench began, very politely, to explain to it that this was a public park and it had every right to be there. He went on for four minutes. The lizard listened. At the end the man said, any questions? The lizard left. I think the man won, but I am not sure the lizard lost. I do not know what the sign said. I suspect nobody does.

On Quinta Avenida, dollars work and nobody will stop you from using them. So why bother with pesos? Because a few streets away, pesos are what people actually use, and you get a puzzled look when you hold out dollars for a coffee. I always change some money before I leave the pedestrian street. Coins and small notes are the useful ones, since a big note for a small purchase is the thing that slows every counter down.

On a Saturday evening you played the violin on a unicycle at the corner of Quinta Avenida and Calle 10, and you were good at both. A woman next to me whispered, he is going to fall, and watched the whole piece with her hand over her mouth. You did not fall. At the end you bowed without getting off, which I think is the hardest thing I have ever seen. I gave you a coin. It was the best coin I have ever lost. I am told you are there on Saturdays. I am there on Saturdays.

The goalkeeper was missing from a pickup game in Gonzalo Guerrero on Sunday afternoon and I was the only person standing around. I let in seven goals and sprained my ankle on the last one. The other team carried me to a bench and one of them ran off to find ice. We are now a team of eleven that loses every Sunday and eats together after. We have not won once. I would not change the arrangement. The real goalkeeper is back. I am on the bench, with the ice.

I was an hour early for the Cozumel ferry when the woman next to me started naming every bird that landed on the pier roof, in a low voice, like a quiet commentator. Pelican. Frigate. Cormorant. She was not a guide, just a retired teacher. When my boat came I realised I had stopped checking my phone. I still look up at the roof of that pier. I have learned nine birds. She taught me eight. The ninth is a gull and I knew it myself.

I was standing in the sun at Parque Fundadores on a Saturday with no hat and a headache that kept getting worse. A woman selling hats from a cart looked at me, took a straw one down, put it on my head and said, pay me tomorrow. I came back the next day with the money and a bottle of water for her. She said, keep the water. I paid for the hat, she took the money, she gave the water back, and I drank it. I wear that hat to every market.

I took a colectivo to Colosio late on a Friday, around 11.30pm. I fell asleep and woke at the last stop with no idea where I was. The driver had already driven past my street, then turned around, and he waited while I rubbed my eyes. He said, it is fine, I have to go back anyway. It was not fine. I am sure he lost money. I sit near the front now and he nods at me every Friday. I would like to pay for two fares. I have not worked out how to do it politely.

Around 3pm on Quinta Avenida you walked past with a saxophone case on your back and an ice cream cone melting slowly down your wrist, like a person who had made peace with it. I was across the street with a notebook, smiling like an idiot. You licked your wrist once, with complete composure, and kept walking. The cone won. I hope the sax was okay. I hope the ice cream was pistachio. I wrote it down, crossed the street, and you were gone.