Stalkers In the Night

When we went out last night I believed we would go dancing but instead we ended up following gay men around in hopes that they would lead us to a secret gay bar. This never happened and instead we stalked two middle age men for fifteen minutes (they never seemed to notice!), until a bird pooped on me and I had to duck into a restaurant to wash it off. Gross. We wandered around a bit more and eventually found the park where many gay youths were hanging out on benches while middle age men started at them from accross the way. Julie and I inserted ourselves into the mix of people chilling but decided not to approach the youths because we were getting too tired (old).

We came back to the hostel where I had to confront the awful reality of sleeping in a stuffy room with a bunch of strangers. Upon first setting eyes on the dorm room in the hostel and seeing all the bunk beds with random girls personal effects strewn about, I was inspired to start singing showtunes from the musical Annie (one of my personal faves):

Don´t it feel like the wind is always howling?

Don´t it feel like there´s never any light?

Once a day don´t you want to throw the towel in?

It´s easier than putting up a fight!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!



I really loved that movie when I was young, and the sassy, scrapy orphan girls were the inspiration for many of my childhood antics. However, living the all girls dormatory dream Euro backpacker style in Mexico has not been fun. We have just a bed and a locker to store our stuff, and someone had piled all their clothes on the top of my locker, which is my only surface space, including their dirty underwear in a clear plastic bag. Even though the locker is clearly numbered to correspond with the bed, the offender did not remove the items upon my arrival, and actually piled more dirty clothes on top when I was out earlier this morning.

In addition, I somehow recieved the only bunk without my own fan in the entire room and which caused me to have a melt down (pun intended) when I couldn´t fall asleep because I was sweating too profusely. The girl in the bunk below had unplugged her fan to charge some batteries and I pulled them out in my late night confusion/desperation, thus waking her up. Fighting off hysteria, I woke up Julie who can sleep anywhere and had previously offered to trade with me, and asked her to switch bunks. I would have felt worse if she had not fallen asleep with a book on her face, thus letting me know she was very, very tired. Once in the new bed with a fan, I eventually fell asleep. Thank god.

However, earlier in the evening, I had made a bold toast to not getting sick on the entire trip and promptly came down with a stomach bug in the middle of the night. So I did not sleep well or long. I have spent the morning reading in a hammock and will presently depart the hostel for a hotel up the way with a pool. I am hoping that my tummy clears up and that I´ll be able to go out and do more exploring later today. I really want a hat and a hammock and don´t want my cheapwadness (not a word) to get in the way of me purchasing these uniquely Yucatan items that will surely enhance my life for years to come beyond the trip.