Outtakes

My mind flicks images like film memories. I close my eyes and watch the last six weeks flash by in a montage I'd give anything to record.

   Scaling the pyramids of Palenque in the searing midday heat, jungle rising on all sides under a deep, indigo sky.


   Crouching next to the fire in our borrowed, three bedroom house, burning pine copal incense and a list of all the negativity we want to spring clean from our heads.


   A moment's interrupted sleep on a concrete patio on the beach, four-way-sandwiched between a rollmat, a mosquito-net, Michael, and a love-deprived cat, who shows his appreciation with a sharp-clawed massage and purrs as loud as the waves behind.


   Rejecting Saturday night drinking in San Cristòbal de las Casas, in favour of apple juice and mariachi in the square and a packet of ham for the street dogs.


   Eating termites from a jungle tree, mouth bizarrely filling with the taste of buttery, peppered carrots.


   Laughing as the heavens open on the first day of the rainy season and squealing with delight and blessed relief as I am soaked to the bone. Retiring to a hammock under the shelter of a rustling pelapa roof, darkness so thick I am aware of my friends only from the sound of their breathing. The evening strobe lighting - so familiar now - flashes images of my swinging feet in snapshot stills.


   Running through a forest that blooms a green carpet in three days of solid rain.

   Hopping the fence to the restricted area of the ruins of Monte Alban; the highest pyramid of all. Being ordered to climb down. The surreality of the pale brown, pyramid studded landscape far below, as if it belongs to the future rather than thousands of years in the past.

   Winning my first ever game of chess in style on a home-made board (card, marker pen and nail varnish). Subsequently winning again.

   Breakfasting on pork tortas by the side of the road, from plates that have "unimpressive" printed around the edges.

   Watching the live chicken stalls in the covered market, birds passed upside down by their legs to bargaining old ladies. Shock deepening as we compare this apparently cruel treatment to the western style 6-to-a-box, beaks-cut-off factory tradition. We buy a bag of fake meat and retreat.

   Crumbling fresh-baked cookies in front of a log fire, clothes steaming, rain teeming.

   Running after my inebriated friend to save her from the clutches of a man. Feeling my feet slide from beneath me. Smacking the stones of the polished pavement with outstretched hand and smashing bracelets.

   Sitting on a bench in the rain watching the embroidered skirts of the Mayan ladies, like colourful dolls, crouched in front of piles of vegetables and coal-grilled corn.

   Plunging my hands into giant sacks of dry black beans, cool and liquidlike.

   The dampness of the sheets around Michael as he moans with the aches of Dengue fever. Reversed roles when I contract a stomach infection the following week.


   The utter silence of a mountain morning, lit by the ethereal beams of sunlight through a tent door.

   Burying feet deep into sand the exact shade and fine texture of wholewheat flour, lapped by coral-slowed, translucent waves.


   Running through the drenching rain in San Cris, where the cobbled streets flow like rivers and the lightning freezeframes the mountains around us; fairy lights in the central square twinkling through the blurred darkness.