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Paradise Found
by Augi Garred

ONE TICKET TO PARADISE
On a whim, I decided to fly to Tulum, Mexico, which is two hours south of Cancun on the Yucatan peninsula. As the initial "leg" of my world tour, I wanted a place to jet-off to for some reflection upon recent events and, more importantly, some free time away from my wicked social schedule to plan my BIGGER trip abroad.

From what some friends had told me, Tulum WAS paradise. Quiet beaches, slower time, and beautiful chicas. This sounded exactly like what I needed, so I booked my flight and prepared for the trip.

Wanting to save money, I opted for a very bizarre set of connections to keep costs down. They were as follows: Portland to Minneapolis, Minn to Chicago, Chicago to Anchorage, Anchorage to Houston, Houston to Mexico City, Mexico City to Madrid, Madrid to Houston, and Houston to Cancun. Don’t ask me how airlines calculate this nonsense. The beauty is, I spent only $4100 and spent only five days flying to get there. And I saved $150 over the cost of a direct flight. I must be a genius!

Now, you may have heard rumors that traveling in Mexico is dangerous. Nonsense.

First off, the very primitive landing strip in Cancun required THREE landing attempts by our Captain who, in a vain attempt to calm us after the first two failed, went into a Captain Kirk-esque impersonation. "Good afternoon (pause) everyone (pause). This is your (pause) captain speaking (double pause). We’ll be making one (pause) more (pause) pass at the (pause) runway and then (pause), we’ll land. Thank you (pause) for flying with us."

Everyone on board made that left-looking squint with their eyes and then scrambled for the airsickness bags. I wasn’t sure if they were grabbing them out from a fear of death or the fear of another bad impersonation.

After successfully landing, I opened up the overhead bin and, not paying attention to the rules ("Be careful as some items may have shifted during flight"), an entire set of luggage flew out of the compartment, smacking the heads of an old couple sitting behind me.

At first I laughed, but after realizing I had just knocked both of them unconscious, I said, "They were sleeping anyway!" and ran out of the plane as quickly as I could. This proved to be a good thing as I managed to avoid the perfunctory departing salutations from the crew.

Once inside the airport and skillfully outsmarting the authorities with my disguise (I quickly attached my Castro-esque beard), I got in the very long cattle line to go through customs. If you have ever been in Mexico, you’ll recall they have a very unusual system for checking you through customs; using the following highly complex system that, no doubt, incorporates some kind of sophisticated logistics system tied to an Oracle database. This is how it works:

You approach what appears to be a mini traffic light. There is a button. You press this button. If the green light activates, you go through with no questions asked. However, if the evil RED light comes on, you’re screwed. You are now, my friend, going to have ALL of your things examined by Damien, the pissed-off Rottweiler.

The frat guy in front of me was one of these unfortunate souls. As he stood there trying to appear ’tight’ in front of his jock friends, his coolness turned to extreme fear as Damien sniffed deeper and deeper into his bag. Suddenly, the dog got overwhelmingly excited, barking and rummaging through the duffle like he’d lost his mind, ripping through the jock’s clothes in search of something I (and everyone else standing there in equal fear) suspected were drugs. When the beast emerged instead with a pair of hot pink panties, everyone in customs laughed. The jock merely came to tears.

"What are these for, amigo?" said the guard.

All the jock’s friends started laughing and taunting him, too. "Yeah, Steve, what ARE those for?"

Steve retorted. "They are my girlfriend’s, man! She must have put them there as a joke, dudes!"

I have never seen someone so big become so small so fast.

After this terrifying scene, I had the good fortune of a green light and strode through customs unharmed.

Taking a transport into overly saturated Cancun, I arrived at the bus station around 6:45 P.M. Keep in mind that I had been traveling QUITE a long while and was feeling a bit whipped, but wasn’t going to let a little sleep deprivation hold me back from my destination. After the 7:00 bus never arrived, the 8:00 bus left at 8:30. Hell, I didn’t care, I had no schedule.

Finally on board the luxury coach liner, I was en route to Tulum in the middle of the darkness, not a soul speaking English and, having heard all sorts of horror stories about bandits stopping buses in the rural parts of Mexico, I locked my bag to my person. Now, don’t ask me what benefit this would have done had we been held up. I mean, with my bag attached to me, I was now not only ripe material for thieves, but a much better hostage.

While traveling on this bus, I thought I was smart studying my little Spanish language guide and getting familiar with the basics (most of which I already knew). Little did I know that it was Spanish for Spain, not Mexico. But ain’t it all the same?

Arriving in the very remote Tulum, I meddled around a bit, and found my way to the Weary Traveler. "Hola," said the tan man. "Hello" I replied. He was from N. Carolina and, thankfully, spoke in the King’s English. I asked him about a place to stay nearby. Rather than just give me the name of a hotel, he told me that two people had been murdered, another raped, and one robbed of all his possessions within the last two days, but that there were "plenty of safe places to stay in." Not exactly encouraging, I will say, but I wasn’t about to go back to Cancun. "Try el Hotelito. They are down just a block."

Off on my way, I moved down the street in an Ozzy Osborne paranoia, where nay swifter a man moved to his destination. The hotel manager greeted me warmly. "Hola, Buenos noches!" I returned my best "Hola!," and made my first attempts at a broken sentence in Spanish. "Habitacion for uno?" I eeked out, very poorly I might add. He sort of stood there stupefied, but knowing I was obviously looking for a room, kindly said "Si" and escorted me upstairs.

The room was nice and looked very relaxing after such a long day...hell, it even had a shower, which I was soon to learn was a luxury in these parts.

"Bueno" I said, and he left me be.

After taking a shower and hanging my bag from the bedposts, I took a brief walk out onto the balcony and looked up at the black of night. The stars radiated in their brilliance and I thought I had found paradise. Back in the room, I laid down to get some rest. "At last," I thought to myself. "I can sleep."

"AHA!" said the gods. For within three and one half minutes of shutting my eyes, a very loud BOOM BOOM BA BOOM BOOM BOOM came pounding through the streets outside in the form of some excessively loud rap music. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a weeklong Mayan festival going on. Part of the festivities were riding around on a double decker bus going up and down the main drag of town (a mere half mile strip) over and over and over again...with very loud music blasting out some very crappy, distorted speakers. This went on for about an hour more and finally ceased around 1:00 A.M.

At last, I fell prey to unconsciousness, and was ever the better for it.

IN THE MORNING, I took a taxi to the beach, where I found a cabana for $22 a night. Let’s just say that my limited Spanish was not too helpful here, for the caretaker of the establishment spoke absolutely no English. (Hey, I wouldn’t either, if I lived here.)

Fortunately, through sign language and the power of simple words, he showed me the cabana and the facilities. It was amusing to discover that the shower was a large barrel of water that you dipped a big cup into and poured over your head. "Wow, this truly is paradise!" That aside, I was a mere 150 feet from the vast ocean, with endless sandy beach and not a person in sight.
Though I had no locking door and my suspicions were at an all-time high, I didn’t care. This had to be the best $22 a night anyone could spend.

The absence of a locking door and the knowledge of murderers and thieves seeking out easy prey put my animal instincts at an all time high. To protect myself, I rigged several ingenious boobie traps. This included rigging up some wire to the flimsy handle of the door and attaching it to a glass of water balanced above it (hey, i saw Greg use this trick on the Brady Bunch) which, if entered upon by an unsuspecting assailant, would drop upon their head! There were a few more security measures employed, but too minute to mention.

Feeling secure, I laid down to sleep listening to the sound of the ocean. "At last," I thought, "paradise."

About 3:00 in the A.M., I awoke to some rummaging noise outside. "Crap," I thought, "What if I have to deal with a real criminal?" I slowly snuck out of my hanging bed and walked to the screen window. As the moon shown brightly, I could see that it was the rustling of some tree branches in the wind.

Relieved, I had an incredible urge to take care of business, so I opened the door to take a break outside. "AHA!" said the gods again, for now I had a large glass of water upon my head. "Damnit!" was all I could muster and, after toweling off, headed back to slumberland.

The next day I headed back into the pueblo (town) to find a local eatery that I had been referred to by friends. After filling up on tacos I inquired with the owner about the murders reported the night before. "There was only ONE that I know of, and that was from some debris falling off that damn Russian space station. Hit some chico (boy) clean on the head and sent him off to heaven. Sad, but true."

Feeling better at this news, I went about my business and found a different place to stay at. A bit more luxurious and not so remote, I found the place that became Augi central for the next seven days. Called, "Diablo el Loco," (which I think means "The Crazy Devil"), it was the perfect mode for paradise.

Now, this story could go on for days, but you have neither the time nor patience to read a novella. So, I’m going to cut to the chase and give you the rundown.

Tulum was great. It was beautiful. People were friendly, the ocean was magnificent, and if you could only see the stars at night...so clear the sky, you could penetrate the deep of the universe and even see the Milky Way.

I met Germans. I met Brooklynites. I even met with a case of Montezuma’s revenge. More importantly, I met with the realization that paradise is not a place, a person, a thing...it is a state of being, or a place in your mind. For, as someone once said, "It is the mind that makes a hell of heaven, or a heaven of hell."

NOW THE QUESTION
So, I answered what I believe is the true meaning of paradise. The question to you is, which of the facts in my story are true? Did the following things happen or not?

1. Did Augi have a Castro beard disguise?
2. Did the plane’s captain really speak like Capt Kirk?
3. Did Augi spend only $22 a night on the Caribbean ocean?
4. Did a rottweiler flail a pair of panties around in customs?
5. Did Augi really go through that many connections to get to Cancun?
6. Did space station debris truly hit some kid on the head?
7. Did Augi have to take cold showers?

If you guessed YES to number 7, you were right. As for the rest...