A second installment from my trip to Mexico...
How can I possibly find the vocabulary to describe where I am, sitting on the terrace of a thatched palapa overlooking the Pacific ocean just north of Puerto Escondido in Mexico? There are huge craggy rocks and several types of cactus growing out of them, and the sort of evergreen undergrowth indigenous to this coast.
How can I possibly find the vocabulary to describe where I am, sitting on the terrace of a thatched palapa overlooking the Pacific ocean just north of Puerto Escondido in Mexico? There are huge craggy rocks and several types of cactus growing out of them, and the sort of evergreen undergrowth indigenous to this coast.
It’s maybe five or six minutes from
sunset, the sky has taken on a rosy glow, the sea is crashing underneath, the
waves rolling onto the white sand underneath. It’s a blissfully peaceful
moment, almost spiritual – the house goes quite, no one wants to speak for fear
of breaking the spell.
Tim is swaying quietly in the
hammock, I’m on one of the low wooden chairs, barefoot, just watching
mesmerized as the golden ball of sun sinks slowly over the sea and disappears
below the horizon like a giant free-range egg yolk. The little fishing boats are
speeding towards the harbour. The pelicans are flying slowly home to roost by
the lagoon. The colours of the sky and the clouds are changing from burnished orange
to dusky pink, gold, to bluey greys and eventually almost charcoal. Suddenly, bats
fly out from under the eves in their hundreds, like tiny little birds. When the
glow of light leaves the sky the cicadas start to sing in the undergrowth and a
little gecko (tiny lizard) clucks as it races up the wall. How can such a tiny lizard
make so much noise? I don’t feel like moving.
In a natural landscape like this one
can understand how ancient Mayans worshipped the sun.
