Quill's Tour - The Dire Straits Chess Club
Hi guys,
We are now in Guatamala in a funky chilled out little town called Flores. Flores is the stop off point for Tikal, the greatest Mayan ruins in the world. We go there today.
Meantime this is a nice place, set around a big tranquil lake. Our hostel has a roof terrace of sorts, and the room costs 80 quetzales for the night (11 dollars or 2 pounds 75 per person - our cheapest yet). The town has cobbled streets and brightly coloured little houses, a few coffee shops, and a couple of bar restaurants that look out or extend into the lake. The eating places are a bit monged out but you can't have everything. Guatamala looks a bit like Chile - nice and green and lush. I was expecting it to be more hassly, but so far so good
Two nights ago we stayed in a town called Chetumal on the border of Mexico which was a bit like going back in time. The only reason we stayed there was to connect with our bus to Flores from Tulum. Chetumal is like what I imagine a small and not very interesting American town from the 1950s to be like. It reminded me of Stepford Wives and the song Killing Me Softly. Lots of depressing clothes shops. Its the kind of place where you spend the evening eating crisps in your hotel room. The hostels all look like cheap motels.
On the way to Flores we had to cross through Belize. We had to pay tax leaving Mexco, leaving Belize even though we didn´t get off the bus, and then taxed entering Guatamala . When we leave Guatamala we will have to pay tax again and again when we leave Mexico.
Belize looked lke an interesting place - jesus. We stopped off at the port there. I think it goes to Honduras. What a mad mix of people, mainly surly blacks. Caribbean music and hip hop pumping out, and this was just in the marina. Loads of jamaicans there that have probably just arrived stowed away in the bottom of a boat from god knows where, Jamaica probably. A few of them were cussing our bus driver. " Watch it man, di ass hole over dere".
Two days ago we left an incredible place - the highlight of or trip so far. Tulum.
Tulum is south of Playa del Carmen about an hour. We went to Tulum to visit the famous ruins, perched on a clifftop overlooking the carribean sea. The ruins are ok but its the lcoation that makes it. But Tulum is not about the ruins. Its about the beach. I'm trying to think of a better looking beach that i´ve been to and i can`t. Sabang in the Philipines, Boracay? Great Barrier reef? Green Island? koukanaries in Skiathos? No. But its not even about how great it looks, its the feeling you get when you`re there.,, you instantly relax...chill out, and it just gets better and better.
We hired a beach hut - or cabana as they're called here -right on the beach. You opened the door and you are on the beach facing caribbean lagoon sea 20 metres away - stunning. 20 dollars a night. Becky had been complaining about the smell of the toilets in the beach huts that we'd rented so far so I did the decent thing and got us a cheaper beach hut without a toilet or shower. Masterstroke.
Tulum has got hardly any people. The more budget acommodation where we stayed -and where the place built up a hippy reputation years ago - is all near the ruins. The further up the beach you go the more pricey the cabanas get. But still, the place has very few people and is quiet and timeless. The beach goes on for an eternity, there`s miles and miles of it, with just this beautful lagoon water... it gets a bit rougher later in the day, but still comfortable for swimming. All the way up the beach there are no beach facing restaurants or bars, just lots of rustic cabanas that are not intrusive in any way.
We met a few people in Tulum including a girl called Fiona who is friends with one of Beckys friends Rachel Batley. They all work in publishing... small world. We met a bloke called Will from Leicestershire. 21 years old, travelling the world, looked exactly like a hobbit. He weighed about 8 stone and came in useful when i'd locked myself out of my cabana by climbing over the top of the door through a gap of about 6 inches.
But we also met another very interesting character - a hippy called Tasso.
Becky and Will were playing chess on the beach at the time (it went on to be becky`s first win at chess), and this chap - a gangly, sun bronzed wizened man in his fifties - came up to them and asked them if they played much. "No, but my husband plays" said Becky.
I was just coming out of the sea and he turned to me and said "so I hear you´re the grandmaster"... and that was where it started.
Tasso was renting one of the beach huts, long term. I think he paid about 5 dollars a day for it, but it didn´t have a bed or even half-way proper security, not even a floor. Just sand, tables and chairs and a hammock. He`s a painter and he sells his stuff to tourists, designers or anyone who´s interested for anything from 20 dollars upwards. He describes himself as a trancultural artist, whatever that means. He's actually not pretentious though. His stuff looks like Picasso to me. I think he changed his name to rhyme with it.
Originally born in Berlin, he´s been everywhere. His accent is also a mixture of everything, but sounds mostly American (he lived there for 20 years). He spends his morning painting (sometimes), in the afternoon he teaches waiters english and in the evening he drinks rum. Lots and lots of it. Often a litre a day. He speaks in a slow thoughtful drunken kind of drawl and he doesn´t have any teeth. Although he`s mellow and blind drunk most of the time, he`s a very sharp guy.
So that day he invited me in to play chess in his beach hut. He was the best chess player I`d ever played, and i´ve played a couple of county level guys. He said he was tought by the best in the yugoslav army! He was really into his chess. He said to me on the first day "you know, right now Kramnic (the world champion) is playing Fritz 10 the computer as we speak?". He was refering to a chess rivalry between man and computer thats been going on since the best player ever Kasparov drew twice and then lost controversially to a computer called Deep Blue about 5 years ago. Its an interesting topic if you`re interested in chess, but it amazed me that he could follow the international chess scene from a beach hut in Tulum. The beach part of Tulum doesn´t have any electricty by the way, apart from a couple of the beach bars and restaurants, and certainly no internet.
After a few games (a draw, a loss and a win) Becky and Fiona turned up and sat watching us play. "So you`re the chess widows, huh" he chuckled through his gummy mouth. "yeah well, thats too bad".
A bottle of rum and three draws later, and we´d run out of coke. Taso piped up "Yeah, we`re in trouble. we oughta call this place the Dire Straits Club". And so it was. The next day he painted the sign on front of his beach hut. The Dire Straits Chess Club. I've got a photo of me and him by the sign, cracking up.
"I love chess", he said "but you don´t get the players here". No shit! He hoped someone would see the sign and pop in for a game, which they properly will. Enough people kept popping in while i was there, thinking it was a bar and then realising it was a chess club. "No beer here mate. just rum and chess".
He'd just came back from San Cristobel, another backpacking place, in the Chiapas near Palenque. Apparantly you can get a chess game there, anytime day or night.
Most of the games we played ended up being drawn. In my experience its not that often that chess games are drawn but we were drawing 50% of the games. Tasso found this amusing and blamed it on me. "they should call you the drawmaster. No one ever wants to play you because no one's gonna win".
His favourite line when he saw what moves I was planning was "I know what you mean, jelly bean".
"Oh baby he's coming for me. Rook takes knight, bishops takes knight and then you get my extra pawn on g5. I don't think so... can't let that happen... ain't never gonna happen". Then he'd play his move and comment modestly "thats trouble right there. Double rooks. Double trouble."
Tasso liked the simple life, although he was cynical about Mexico. I ran into him outside one of the two communal toilets that the camp shared. One of the toilets was blocked, and I'd just used the other one. "Yeah thats Mexico" he said.
Tasso figured the Mexicans were slow and lazy, and that nothing ever really happened in Mexico, which was kind of why he liked it. The Mexico word for tomorow is "manyana" by the way. And Manyana Manyana means the day after tomorrow. Tasso had his own thoughts on what manyana meant.
"Yeah, Manyana means its never gonna happen... and watch out for when those Mexicans call you "amigo". "Amigo" means they're gonna fleece you".
He kind of liked the fact that there was no electricity in Tulum and felt that when they did get electricity then this place would be gone. No electricity kept everything slow, no electronics. You can live in your own peaceful bubble oblivious to the rushing around of the outside world. Not having Tv and electronic stuff enables you to be where you are and appreciate it for what it is without escaping to another world. In that way you could enjoy Tulum properly and get what its all about, which is doing nothing. "Blah blah blah" as Tasso would say.
One time I was drinking rum and pineapple with him at about 11 in the morning. I'd suggested that we play chess on a table on the beach to soak up the sun and the beuaty of the place, but he wasn't having it.."it wouldn't work. You're mixing apples and oranges there mate"
So we were playing chess in the beach hut instead of swimming in the caribbean and i commented on how the pinapple juice tasted good with the rum. Tasso agreed and said "Yeah we don't have ice here, so the pinapple juice kind of works. Without ice, rum and coke is a bit blah"
After a few days I was thinking about moving south to Guatamala. I mentioned this to him.
"Why don't you stay for a while longer" he said, "I can you offer you .. nothing, because thats all there is to do around here"