Village of Piste and an old perv man

(I wrote this on September 4th)

Today I left Merida Behind. I visited Uxmal and it was a gorgeous place. No words of mine will do justice for it.

Merida is a nice city. It’s the capital of Yucatan state. To my liking, after returning from the ruins of Uxmal, it seemed terrible polluted. The streets are narrow and the little wind that helps you breath actually feels like you would be standing behind a exhaustion pipe of a big truck, it’s warm and feels dirty.

I took the afternoon bus to Piste, a village of 7000 people just next to the ruins of Chizen Itza. I ended up staying in a hotel right next to the main street. It’s called Poseidon what ever. After hard bargain I dropped the price from 250 pesos to 170 for one night. It’s still much for my budget but a double bed room with a shower is a nice change.

The owner of the hotel also owns a bar cross the street. He invited me for a beer. We shared a 1 liter bottle and then an other one when he insisted.

I know normally I should tell the nice side of things but I will do an exception just for you my dear blog readers. This man was a troubled soul. He was 76 years old according to his own words. He has lived his whole life in Piste and among other things is a herb healer. He read my hand by squeezing it. The result was that I was thinking of my family all the time. I wanted to thank him for reminding me for that important thing but decided to just nod as a sign of accepting his skills.

The man started talking to an other person briefly. We were sitting outside the bar and across the street I saw a woman climb in to a truck. She decided to enter from the drivers side and squeeze herself over the driver slowly teasing the man. From the other side entered an other woman and a man. When everyone was inside the truck took off.

The chat between me and the owner continued. Topics were heavy ones; death of his child, prostitutes, her ex and current wife, religion and beer.

“God is great”, he repeated every now and then. God was so big that after the swine flue calmed down He brought back the tourists. These tourists give work for majority of this city since Piste is located just 1 km from the famous Maya ruins of Chitzen Itza. The ruins are one of the new seven wonders of the world. Those wonders were selected on the Internet by voting some years back. The new 7 wonders of the world… I guess global tourism needed some extra promotion for the new millennium.

This story isn’t pretty. The old man was nice but I can’t say the same about of the way he sees the world. After having his first child according to him the sex wasn’t the same with his wife. Demonstrating with his hands he pointed out how the “stuff” downstairs was loose after giving birth. So it was natural that he searched for some other ladies to just give him pleasure.

Some young men showed up the second time to the bar with their bikes. During the first visit the other one of them placed his bike carefully against the pavement. This time he tried to place is there gently but his hand eye coordination was gone and his eyes looked empty. Finally the bike just crashed on the street.

The old man continued his stories. “The god is great and all over the place!” He told how he was a 100% 100% 100% precent Mayan. There was something in the way he said it that made me doubt it. The fact that his skin was a bit pale also made me wonder about his true ancestors. My imagination took off and made a story where her mother cheated her husband with a white man and that is how he was born. Back in real life the man used to work for the big hotels of the village as a musician. That explains the drinking problem I thought… He was drunk when I met him and even more drunk now.

The other one of the young men had left again and now he came back all covered in mud. Most probably he had fallen with his bike. This time he just tossed his bike to the ground. His eyes looked really drugged. He wasn’t the only one looking like on drugs. Every second young person that passed by looked to be on drugs. These were poor men so my guess was that they were sniffing glue or something close by. I’ve seen that happen among the road workers in Guadalajara.

The stories of the old man, that I first found interesting, now started to disgust me. He told me about his second wife who comes and goes to Merida every week. Apparently she has a man there and it’s no secret. His got 4 daughters. One of them tried to be in charge of the bar but it didn’t work out.

While telling his stories this old man was looking at young women passing by us. One was his old friend. He asked me if I would like to have her for the night. It would just cost me 200 pesos (10 euros). I told I just wanted to sleep tonight. “Just sleep!” he laughed and let it go. The women said to him that I wouldn’t be interested of her. “I was more into Gringas (white girls).” I tried to explain that that is not the case, but decided to let it go after starting my sentence.

As I’m writing this the old man entered the hotel with some woman. I’m sure he is thinking: “God is great and everywhere”.

After finishing the beers I told the man I would pay the other one and went in to pay. “40 pesos”, said the lady. A man in the corner told her: “cover him 50″. I gave her 100 and got back 50. I said this wasn’t what she said to me but it didn’t help. To them I was just money in the same way women were meat to this old man. I went to my room and blocked the door with a table. During our conversation he had mentioned too many times that the hotel is a really safe place to sleep. Good night, Piste.