PLAYA HATER

By CHRIS BUNTING

October 24, 2006 --  DRIVING by yet another one of Cancun’s mutant Wal-Marts (there’s three, same as Fresno!), I get the sneaking suspicion I’ve forgotten something.

        Oh, right - my debit card. Helplessly in the backseat of a cab some 20 minutes away, I realize I left it inside an ATM machine at one of Plaza 21’s fine strip clubs where -- at that very same moment -- some entrepreneurial local is using it to withdraw $1,000 of mine. And the rascally S.O.B.’s probably spending it on the very same senorita I’d just proposed to a half-hour ago (lucky for all, whatever tequila-con-tobasco-slurred words I used, it wasn’t Spanish, English, or anything other earth language she could understand).

        And while I wish the very best for the two of them, I really miss the puny little guy. My ATM card, I mean. Especially because my wallet is now emptier than a piñata on the seis de mayo. As an added bonus, I literally pay my cab fare with the “UC Berkeley” shirt off of my back (my alma mater’s MEChA chapter would be so proud), leaving me to ask my miserable self only one question:

        “Why the @$% did I ever leave Mérida?”  
        (Cue flashback squiggles.)  
        Beep. Bee-beep. BEEEEEEPPPPPPP. CRUNCH! Uh oh. My Dodge Attitude rental is living up to its name a little too well, clipping off the fifth side-view mirror of the day while plowing between the parked cars on a crowded, narrow street in Merida’s centro colonia (the downtown hood). I totally would have left a note except that today happened to be Mexican Independence Day and there was no way I could stop. Hell’s coming for me soon enough.

        Merida is a flat city divided into dozens of colonias (neighborhoods), home to nearly 800,000 people, in the its northwest pocket of the Yucatan, of which it’s the capital. Merida’s a mere 200 miles from Cancun as the crow flies (or if he had the kind of cash - $25/one-way, oofa - to take toll highway 180). But it seems like parsecs.

        On its surface, the place looks no different from the colonial zones of Santo Domingo and San Juan - cobble stone streets below old-world architecture, rabid street vendors, and a whole lot of Jesus going on.

        But Merida’s an entirely different animal. Long before the Caribbean’s big urban centers became ridiculously Westernized, followed by half-ass attempts to preserve historical aspects, Merida had a genuine and self-created modern-cum-ancient spirit: a mercantile culture that’s attracted gobs of Lebanese ex-pats, home-grown millionaires (mostly from the henequen fiber biz) and artists ranging from 24P HD film makers to classic violinists. There’s also a very open gay and lesbian scene whose sexuality they claim to have inherited from the millennia-old Mayan bloodline.

        And Merida hasn’t any Wal-Marts (OK, it has one, but it’s way out in the ‘burbs, out of sight, out of mind).  
        That particular day the city was nearing 100 degrees with the humidity of a tsunami - I was just desperate to track down my hotel for a quick shower or two, and a nap.

        Lo, Luz En Yucatan: A nondescript door next to a church on Calle 55, accessed only by buzzer, that opens up into the stylish three-story apartment building you wish you owned in Williamsburg. Luz has a giant ambrosial garden, cats lounging poolside, and a open bar - and that’s just in the extended lobby. It’s owned and operated by the delightful Madeline Parmet, one-half of the two-person “Jewish mafia” in town - the other half, Ellyne Basto, runs another cute hotel (with a river running through it!) called Cascadas de Merida, on the other side of town.

        I stroll up the twin set of spiraling stairs to my penthouse apartment, meticulously furnished by Parmet, an admitted wild child of the ’60. Inside, there are lavalamps, windows that are Matisse paintings redone in mosaics, and a Corona-filled fridge. The perfect ingredients for the kind of soul-searching done by nuns, shamans, lamas and other like metaphysicians who’ve slept here.

        Outside on the rooftop patio, there’s the excellent view of the street life below: Students whizzing by mopeds, drag queens making their way, a truck filled with 20 pig carcasses in the bed en route to a restaurant: A street long summary of the city’s chimeric soul.

         Screw the nap; time to hit that pavement - just apply a few more coats of deodorant. OK.   
        If you, as I do, find yourself being practically dragged off the sidewalk into a nameless shop and thrown onto a hammock, have no fear - it’s practically custom.

        See, the hammock industry is big time business here, second to none (just ask the millionaire henequen moguls). And the hammock pushers have the same follow-you-down-the-street, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer style of a Patpong street pimp. But unlike in Bangkok, the only thing you’ll catch by trying out the goods here is a good night’s sleep. Please do so.

        There’s actually a war of sorts going on between vendors selling locally-made hammocks, and those selling Chinese-made ones. It’s believed, of course, that the domestic ones are stronger, more comfy, etc. So vendors will present proof that indeed their hammocks are indeed made in the Yucatan - usually coming in the form of a photo album filled with pictures of their extended family picking the fiber, hanging it, weaving it together, yada yada. Odd thing is, I saw the same exact same photos of “grandma” knitting a hammock at shops all over town like she was some sort of Duane Reade picture frame floozy.

        Oh well. Give in to the scam - the hammocks, usually priced between $30-$90, truly rock (and you can test drive them at most shops). Their “Panama” hats, however, are less exciting.

        Besides that, the city’s all very Bay Area - there are people painting on street corners, endearing homeless characters everybody knows by name, big band musicians jamming in Parque Santa Lucia (Calle 55 and 60), puppet theater on Calle 55 (every Sunday afternoon), erotic film festivals and foreing screenings over at Teatro Merida (Call 62 at 59). Right brains just exploding everywhere you look.

After a kebab or two at Café Alameda, a Lebanese spot on Calle 58, I catch a Orquesta Sinfonica de Yucatan performance at the Teatro Jose Peon Contreras  (Calle 60 at 61) where the violin section was led byJersey-born concierto Christopher Collins (who’s found himself a mansion in town to call home now that credit has been introduced to the economy, as are many incoming ex-pats).

        Night fell, and under the fireworks casting rainbowed umbrellas over the celebratory city, I sit captivated by the classically trained operatic voice of local-going-on-global superstar Maria Teresa - her voice as big as her voluptuous proportions.

        If it’s good enough for the Japanese emperor, I suppose it’s good enough for me - so for dinner, I hit the super luxury 18-suite Hacienda Xcanatun, off the highway which runs north from Merida to Progreso. Its Casa de Piedra restaurant serves up some of the best chile-tamarind chicken breast on mango and jicama salad I’ve ever had (and I hadn’t) (xcanatun.com).

        Somehow, someway, I top off the night binge drinking with Tania, a sexy young cheerleader, at La Kabbala club on Prolongacion Montejo, Colonia Itzimna. One of the finest Guns N’ Roses cover bands ever is on stage. Little wonder why the rest gets blurry. 

        As the next morning’s sunlight comes pouring through the mosaic, I wake up in a daze, cheerleader-less (was it all a dream?), and “Paradise City” pounding through my brain - it was unfortunately time to pack up. Off to Cancun. Fingers crossed that it will be half as awesome as Merida . . .