By James Stone -


In the space of 12 hours I had rid myself of all the cares in the world. Job was getting me down, family was dishing out an endless conveyor belt of grief, and of course my women proving more trouble than they're worth. Last Friday night I was browsing the internet and within a few hours I had sorted it all out. I felt like an outlaw on the run and like all good fugitives, I summed it up in just four words: "I'm goin' to Mexico."

It was a line in a travel brochure that first caught my eye, and at that point I didn't understand how revealing it would turn out to be. "Cloaked in thousands of acres of woodland," it read, "the Yucatan peninsula contains the twin jewels of the pre-Hispanic America and the self-contained tourist paradise of Cancun."

I wasn't interested in all that hippy, boho stuff so I decided to head out to the Spring Break capital of Cancun.

It was the sight of the white sands and crystal waters that first caught my eye as we flew into the airport. Cancun was a self-contained tourist paradise: casinos, bars, clubs, restaurants, golf, the works. The resort has a resident population of about half a million, all of whom rely on the two million tourists who flock to the vast panoramic beaches and turquoise seas that girdle the coastline. The place is more that just a resort: it is one of the world's only tourist cities.

But I have to confess, I wanted more. I suppose I'm just that kind of guy. Each time I walked past Burger King I remembered the time that me and Julie broke up when I was 14. Each time I saw a couple canoodling on the beach I thought of my brief time with Wendy last summer. And when I saw a portly American with his white shorts, polo shirt and bum-bag, I thought of my boss…

I needed to get away from it all, to really escape the materialistic trappings of the tourist trade. So, like many men on the run, I headed south.

A lanky-haired Californian I met on the local bus told me about this place called Chichen Itza. It was one of the centres of Mayan civilisation which stretched over southern Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, he told me, and thrived between 700 and 900 AD.

So I thought I'd check it out. Hell, what else was I going to do? So I hopped on a few more buses, travelling through the night and chatting to some of the locals (I had basic Spanish from school), who were on their way back from Cancun to their home villages. They assured me that this was certainly a place to go, but strangely couldn't give me any details. Surely this is like an Englishman not knowing what Stonehenge looks like I thought.

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