Au revoir to Eco Chic

Sadly I have to say tatty bye to all this tomorrow. Tant Pis.

This place is a bit like a biosphere reserve for Mac users. How they roam freely...

In a matter of days I will be in a less protected area where quite natural behaviours, like walking around with an expensive computer, are likely to result in a violent death. I'm sure that the free wireless internet at Pollo Campero is a cunning ruse to get the laptop users out in the open where they can be picked off more easily!

It's been more "bonjoooour" mwuah mwuah here than "hey, are you guys from Philly?" The twitching NFL addicts don't get much further south than Playa. Not much chance here of finding one of those bars with folks shooting pool to a soundtrack of B-b-b-bad to the bone.

Right now I'm listening to a bit of Django Reinhart and the Hot Club of Paris. There's a very pukka English family playing Scrabble around the sofa next to me. The waitress asked if they wanted some music and when they said "no thanks" on it came.

Ottie, my taxi driver here in Tulum (#142) agrees with me on two key points. Playa has become spoiled, and Cancun was always a shithole. It appears that the European sophisticates have finally abandoned Playa and its environs and drifted down here as their old playgrounds have been swallowed by the barbarian "hey y'all" hordes from the north.

When I checked into Lunata on Saturday night there was a very pleasant American couple enquiring about the availability of 'eco-tours'. The girl at the desk gave them a blank look then handed out some brochures to the sort of places where you can molest a dolphin along with hundreds of other like-minded punters. But, they whined, we wanna jag-oo-ar.

They were just a bit too ensconced in Vacation World. The road I will take south of here tomorrow pulls away from the Caribbean leaving one final corner of the peninsula to unspoiled habitats, where even the eco-friendly hotels with their solar panels are barred: The Sian Ka'an ("Where the sky begins") biosphere reserve. Here you might find all five species of Central American big kitties - Jag-oo-ars, Oscelot, Margay, Puma and Jaguarundi.