There are places that deceive you. From the outside they look beat up, dented, sodden, but when you get close you realize, like opening a dusty rock to discover a glittering geode, that the grit is a front, intended to disguise the intricate details that are hidden within. The southern coast of Mexico is one such place.
From the crowded highway south of Cancun, tilting billboards advertise package hotels and cheap tours to crowded minivans of midwestern tourists and their drivers. Our small Nissan rumbles slowly through a mass of busses, vans and rentals of every provenence toward the Belizian border two hours away. The hot heavy air, a welcome change from the freezing winds of New York in December, weighs down the car, pushing us lower in our seats.
As we pass giant gates to self-important all-inclusive resort worlds with names like Dolphin Paradise, and the River Maya, I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. The trip, with a friend’s family, seems like a test of my patience with american economic colonialism.
Fortunately, we soon ease out of the traffic and the signs of Mexico become more apparent. There is a roadside meta-culture among fast-developing countries that exists from Africa to Southern Asia, the Pacific Islands to Mexico, and is instantly recognizable to travelers who’ve spent a signifgant amount of time int these places.
It starts with the cinder blocks. Nearly every developing country in modern times relies heavily on cinderblock construction. Houses, buildings, government outposts are nearly always of painted cinderblock construction, and in fast-growing areas, half-constructed cinderblock structures are as common as people lining the roads.
Zooming past cinderblock bodegas, now at a much higher speed, I start to see the other details that make up the southern coast of Mexico’s roadside culture. The stray dogs running from garbage pile to garbage pile in search of scraps, the smell of rotting jungle foliage and smoke, and the hum of small dirtbikes cruising slowly along the fringes. I begin to relax into the scenery.
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