The accidental search

Before Michael arrived I was told to learn to heal with my hands by Marcos, who tells us he is a shaman even as he pours his first beer of the day at 11am.




Marcos gives me the name of a man who will teach me; James, who can be found on the beach at Mazunte, Oaxaca.



In the same week, Mike is given a scrawl of a map by friends, showing three places he should visit. He holds it up to the camera during one of our Skype conversations. Even through the blur of the video call my eye was drawn to a huge black arrow taking up most of the page. The arrow pointed to Mazunte, Oaxaca. Yet another coincidence in a long line of synchronous surprise.



So, after a few days in the backpacker's world of Puerto Escondido, we emerge on the beach at Mazunte. Line of yellow beaches backed by dusty cliffs and licked by fizzing turquoise. The sunset to our right is obscured by a long reptile of land reaching down to the south. My eye is drawn to a giant cactus, visible on the end of the peninsula; cupped hands scratching the sky in stark contrast to the bare rock of its surroundings.



The drama of the cliffs reminds me of Cornwall. But this is unmistakably small-town Mexico. The sand stretches to the road, where a small line-up of restaurants offering an eye-widening selection of menus forms what is known as 'town' to la banda.



Comedors offer cheap quesadillas and loaded tlayudas (huge crispy-barbequed tortillas filled with cheese, refried beans, meat and vegetables) under palm-leaf shelters and flickering candlelight. Fierce locals protect their village from the commercialism of the surrounding coast, shielding strong stems of individuality and quality in their establishments, that set this place in a different league to its peers. The mechanical squeaks of tropical birds blend effortlessly with the soft rhythms of tambor drums, somewhere on the hillside behind us. Mike itches to play; I long to hula hoop.

We run as far as we can to try and catch a glimpse of the sun before it disappears. We squeeze under a gate to get to the highest point we can and pause, giggling like drunks at the incredible view laid out for us.

We are captured.

The next day we hand over 1500 pesos - about 80 pounds - for a month's stay in a room on the sand that looks like the inside of an orange.

We are floored by contentment.

A fan, a bed. A doorstep of sand and a view of the sea. Faint memories of shopping for unnecessary crap seem inconceivable now. We can think of nothing more that we need, except perhaps a musical instrument for Mike to play.

I need to find James. We splash through the waves to the next beach, stopping on the way to talk to a man called Lorenzo. He sits, staring at the sea, jerry can of mezcal in his hand, sombrero proudly on his head. A self proclaimed "Noodist Booddist", voiced in the only accent that allows the two to rhyme in the singing manner of a mantra.

He has a drum. He agreed to fix it for its owner four years ago. He is leaving and wants to lend it to us.

As if this is not slick enough, it transpires the drum belongs to Shaman Marcos, who actually brought us here in the first place.

Mike's face lights up in amazement and I recognise the same light that has been shining from my own eyes. In that instant he catches a glimpse of that something beyond. I know his thoughts mirror mine.

Lorenzo brings out a Tibetan singing bowl. Seven different metals combined, bashed into a deep silver cave. He drags a small, metal cylinder around the edge and it hums with a stomach rumbling vibration that makes all those in the near vicinity turn towards us. He believes it resets any turmoil that might lurk inside.

I try it and feel my whole body respond to the vibration. The sounds is almost ancient. I am a bowl myself, singing, feeling the sound through me and a part of me, sifting and settling.

After over an hour squatting in the dust in front of him, listening to his stories, I remember the original purpose of our walk and continue onwards, asking wisened faces if they are James. The humming in our ears and the drum in Mike's hands give the journey a fated edge; it takes less than five minutes before we are standing on James' veranda, being welcomed like old friends.

James reclines in a blue hammock, wearing a pair of ragged shorts under a dark brown chest that is connected to the air with white wires. His face hides under a huge beard of grey. He must be almost seventy.

He pulls himself up from the hammock and I am dwarfed by his height, lost in an embrace, during which I feel energy pulsing gently from him.

He speaks as if he is the voiceover for a cinema blockbuster, intonation pressing heavy words into us, forcing us to question our reality. We pass the evening swinging in his hammocks, listening to his stories.  He offers to take us to explore Punta Cometa. Realisation dawns as he explains this to be the long point of land to our west, thought to be an energy vortex since ancient times. I understand why it has been drawing my eye.

He would like to teach us the stories of this sacred place. He would also like to teach me everything he knows about healing.

We sleep deeply, the waves in our ears, our new gifts painting dreams in explosions of colour.

Chasing Pelicans

Muck tells the story with full body actions and huge manipulation of his gravel-toned voice.


"I was in a boat, chasing pelicans," he begins, clasping his hands together and crossing his legs. We nod, by this time so accustomed to Muck's stories that not an eyebrow is raised.

"We're steaming along, clouds of pelicans rising from all around. Carrie's laughing, I'm yelling. All of a sudden, the motor falls off!"


He leans back in his chair, slaps his knees, laughs at the ceiling.

"Well I was like, 'Blow me! What do I do now?!' I was twenty yards from shore but the boat was rented and we had to return it a good mile or so down the beach. 'What do I do?' I say to myself. 'What do you do in this kind of situation?'"

He looks at us enquiringly. "I don't know, what DID you do?" I reply, dutifully.


"Well, quick as I can, I take note of two points near by, to remember where the motor fell. By this time the tide is trying to take us out, so I know my priority is to get the boat and Carrie back to shore. So I jump into the water!" He cackles. "And I start swimming. I swim as hard as I can, pushing the boat to safety." Muck front crawls from his seat.


"I swim and swim and swim some more. Eventually I get the boat back, get Carrie settled, and turn around to go back to the beach. 'Where are you going?' shouts Carrie," (he cups his hands around his mouth theatrically). "'To get the motor!' I shout, and carry on going before she can say anything.


"So I run along the shore until I find the point where I think I dropped the motor. I swim out to it. A boy is watching me and he knows what I'm trying to do. He just watches and watches as I swim. When I've swam for about five, ten minutes I match up the points that I took when the motor went down. I think I've got it pretty good. So I dive. I swim all the way down to the bottom - it must be a good fifteen feet.


"I don't find it. I'm running out of air and I have to pop up to the surface, quick, or else I'll drown."


"So what did you do?!" the audience cries, captivated.


"I dive again." Splash! goes his imaginary sea. "Same thing. No joy."

His shoulders heave with the remembered effort. "So I dive again."


"On the third dive, blow me! I find it!"


"You find it?!"


"I find it! My first reaction is to grab the thing and try and pull it. But this is a thirty horsepower motor we're talking here." He opens his hands wide and bounces them, weighing an invisible bulk. "There ain't no way I'm going to lift that thing out of the water.


"So what do I do? Well... There was only one thing for it." We can see where this one is going, but the magic is in the build up. "You didn't..." starts Taylor.


"I did!" exclaims Muck, eyes dancing. "I did!


"I eye up the distance to shore. I take a deep breath. I dive again."


He plunges through the air. The imaginary sea goes Pssssssssshhhhhhht around the old man. I submerge myself with him.

"I raise up the motor as much as I can, helped by the lift of the water. And I drag it, a few inches, along the seabed towards the shore. Then I run out of air and I have to drop it - thhdd - and go up for air."

He raises his hands as we return to the surface.


"I take another big lungful. Pop down again. Do the same thing. Run out of air."


More gesticulating, deep gasp. He struggles for oxygen.


"And then I go down again. Little by little, I edge towards the shore, slowly walking my way along the seabed. I feel like a merman or something!" He bares his teeth and shakes with merriment.


"I'm going for about twenty minutes, up, down, like a seal. By this time there is a small crowd of people watching me. I get closer and closer to shore, bobbing up and down as I come up for air. Then I get to the point where I can stand on the bottom, and bit by bit I bend down and drag it towards the beach. The water is up to my chin, then my chest, then my waist. Eventually, when I'm close to fainting, I heave the motor out of the water and in sight of the crowd, who at that point realise what I've been doing all this time. Someone comes to help me pull it out.

"I'm so tired I collapse on the beach."


He hangs his head to the side and we are there with him in his exhaustion.


"I'm lying there, dripping, next to an enormous black motor," he says, head still to one side. "I can't even move. But I've done it! I've actually rescued the motor! So I just lie there and try to recover." His chest heaves.


"Then a man comes up to me. He squats down next to me and he says, with a slight smile.... He says to me, 'What, by God, were you doing out there?"

"And I say...HA...I say..." I can see the punchline almost exploding out of him. He laughs his infectious laugh, claps his hands and concludes with a flourish;

"Chasing pelicans!"

Breaking boundaries

My new best friend Dina runs past me down the beach, shouting and flapping her arms.

She is usually fairly dramatic. But then I notice a small boat approaching the shore through the gathering folds of darkness.

'I'm going to Sayulita! Someone sent a private boat!' She cries, beautiful eyes bulging with excitement. I look at my companions, preparing for a quiet night in front of the fire. Look down at the remains of my flame-toasted frankfurters.

It takes about fifty seconds before I am hauling myself over the side of the boat after her, laughing because I have no idea what we're about to do.

I just couldn't say no to a night-time panga ride.

I know it is the right decision the moment I sit back and introduce myself to the crew. Aside from Phillippe, our chaperone, there are two older people there who introduce themselves as Muck and Carrie, amidst peals of slightly maniacal laughter.

Carrie is all over Muck - evidently they have not seen each other for a while. She has several holes where teeth should be and talks a lot about their days touring with the Grateful Dead. Muck has a long, grey ponytail, a voice like Louis Armstrong and the glint of LSD in his eyes.

'Away we go!' cries Muck, and the wind whips my hair saltily. The air is soft on my skin and the stars peer at us in disapproval.

I am still confused as to why we have this boat, but it soon becomes clear that this is standard with Muck and Carrie - their stories being unerringly incomprehensible and bizarre. I find out later Muck 'got lost' in Sayulita for three days. When he came to that afternoon, he donned his knight's hat and commandeered a panga to fetch Carrie, who he'd left a hundred miles away in Yelapa, providing a convenient steed for my and Dina's adventure.

We swig Ricea - the local firewater - and laugh because it is all that good.

Bioluminescence sprays from the front of the boat like welding sparks. We put our hands in it, spellbound. The water feels warm. I bend backwards out of the boat so the spray is above my head and the starry bottom falls out of my world. I am soaked.

'I can see the light!' screams Muck in his half-voice, waving an imaginary lasso. Dina climbs onto the prow, picks up the painter and surfs her way to land.

Just like this movie-scene journey, the subsequent few days could never be justified on paper. I did try.

But how could I explain the speed with which Phillippe drove from Boca de Tomatlan up the coast to Sayulita? The glow that greeted us at the huge orange mansion that someone called Taylor was renting, purely for the purpose of 'picking up strays' like us? The magical brother/sister trio that was borne when Taylor, Dina and I were joined?

The dancing on the bar. The hole in my foot. The circuits around town in a golf buggy.

These events are best left to the imagination. For it is there that invention can draw freely, lavishing scenes with the deserved paint of legend.

I become Carrie's mascot. She even gives me a dress. I find out later she is bipolar, which wouldn't have bothered me had she not thrown all of my belongings down the stairs in a fit of rage and then called me baby afterwards. I then understood how it was that Muck could 'lose' her for three days.

For that moment, though, no one can stop smiling. Least of all me. I have taken the power back. I am Ju again. The world toasts me with another synchronicity.

Last week I read two random pages of a book about 2012 - two pages that happened to be about England.

Today I see the same book at Taylor's house and randomly open it. It falls apart at the same pages I read before. At the top of the page I find the following lines, that I hadn't noticed first time round.

'Ultimately, it boils down to what you, the observer, wants to see.'

Taylor tells me I can keep the book.

Serendipitous. Spontaneous. Extemporaneous.

Carrie was nervous about returning to Yelapa. Apparently this was because she accidentally stole a horse.

'But how can you accidentally steal a horse?' I ask.

'I don't know,' she replies, 'but I think it was the happiest hour of my entire life.'