A Strange Place To Buy An Alarm Clock

It was about 3am when the bus pulled into Campeche and I took a taxi straight to the budget hostal I had circled in my guide book, that apparently had 24 hour service. As we rumbled over the cobblestone streets and past the zocalo (town plaza) I smiled to myself at the familiar flags that drape every Mexican public space; the cheerful colours of the houses and the balmy late-night air evoking an infectious warmth throughout my body, despite the tiredness after a nine-hour bus ride. Campeche is striking at first sight by night, ringed by an ancient fortress wall, gloriously illuminated by powerful flood lights.

As we veered away from the centre and towards a back street, the destination of my choice was a fairly daunting site with its prison-like doors, robust with iron bars, and bells that required several rounds of ringing before a middle-aged man, grunting and cursing and scratching his head, came down.

I was instructed to wait while he readied the room, and I did so for about 15 minutes, with my heavy pack on my back. I studied the cracks in the walls and the insects that giddily danced about the open light bulbs. At last he made his way grumpily down the stairs and inclined his head, leading me, with no offer of help to carry the luggage, up the rickety staircase to the most spartan room imaginable.

The impossibly high ceilings made the empty room even more intimidating as the naked walls bore no sign of paintings or drapes or, in fact, any attempt at decoration at all. The large patches of open cement, where the paint had peeled off completely were accompanied by a ceiling fan that screeched with a desperate howling capable of waking the dead, and there was an awkwardly-placed wardrobe in the corner with a door hanging off.

There was no sheet on the bed and I received a thunderous look when I asked for one, as this far-from-welcoming hotelier growled off muttering loudly, with no attempt to conceal his clear dislike of me. There was no mirror in the room and when I went to the bathroom at the end of the hallway to take out my contact lenses, there wasn’t one there either. I took a deep breath and wrestled with my fear as I walked along the creaking hallway back to my room, pulled the sheet up to my ears and tried to think of something else until sleep finally relieved me from my nerves.

When the morning dawned a few hours later, the shadows that the moonlight had cast on my bed and across the walls, wreaking havoc in my over-active imagination, were gone. I had to arrange my trip to the ruins of Uxmal and I walked off in search of the bus station, which took me past the plaza, the market, and beyond the city limits as I sweated copiously and unbecomingly in the furious, unrelenting heat.

It is quite amazing the difference it makes in Mexico walking the streets alone or walking with a man. Having decided to part ways at this leg of the journey, my male friend and travelling companion, Paul, was now on his way to Cancun. Walking with Paul, the men around me were somewhat subdued and all I attracted were a few muted stares. Walking alone provoked overwhelming scenes of whistles, catcalls, bus drivers beeping their horns as they juddered past, old men asking me where I was going and inviting me to drinks, offers to carry my bags, and constant, omnipresent, ill-concealed,lustful stares.

It can be a little scary being a woman alone and I can’t deny that it’s a challenge but I’m getting to know a side of myself that I wasn’t aware existed before. There’s something empowering about ploughing through an unknown terrain in a foreign land that most people I know are either frightened by or have never heard of, and actually doing it – travelling it – feeding off of the colourful streets, the heady smells of boiling corn and fried tortillas, the broken sidewalks, pot-holed pavement and just... life – pure provincial Mexican life – exploding with music and vital energy before my eyes.

Exploring the streets and nosing about the markets, I don’t feel lonely at all. Lying on the “beach”, which in Campeche is really nothing more than a gravel pit with children’s play things and some patches of grass, that drops off sharply into horribly contaminated water (its name – playa bonita – (pretty beach) somewhat undeserved), I am quite content with my own company. My life in Madrid is such a frenzied blur of social activities, parties, outings, chat and company, it’s slowly dawning on me that I haven’t been alone for a very long time. I think I had almost convinced myself that I couldn’t be alone. I had forgotten about the solitary, reflective side of myself that likes to observe sometimes, happy to not be the centre of attention. Sitting here watching the kids play and the chubby Mexican lady at my side cackle with embarrassed delight as her husband places a cheeky hand on her buttock doesn’t make me miss anybody. It just makes me smile.

Plus I was still processing the curious event that had happened as I was walking back from the bus station. Paul had gone off with the alarm clock and I had no cell phone, or watch, or in fact any way of ensuring I made the early-morning bus tomorrow, so I stopped by the market that spread over the narrow streets, stand after stand that promised to satiate every sense of the body from pungent smells to florescent colours, delicious tastes of melt-in-your-mouth beef tacos and loud, relentless merengue music.

I challenge you to imagine of the most innately bizarre item you can think of and can say with absolute confidence that, in a Mexican market, you will find it here. From sex toys to steaming pigs’ ears and chilly-fried grasshoppers, flashlights and door fastenings, anything you could possibly need is taken care of in the mercado.

I stopped at a small stall that had batteries and watches, and little plastic dogs with heads that wagged up and down when you flicked them, to ask a lady if she sold alarm clocks, at which she called her husband over from the table behind, where he was swigging beer and playing cards. They engaged in a heavy discussion, arguing back and forth about something that seemed to be worthy of great debate. After a few raised eyebrows and smouldering looks between them, the lady turned to me, composed herself, and smiled, indicating that yes; they did sell alarm clocks and if I would be so amable, to follow her husband where he would get one for me.

He led me out of the market and down a narrow street far less populated and noisy, the throbbing music somewhat muffled in the distance. The Mexican Senor looked me up and down with a gap-toothed smile revealing a golden crown, as I continued to follow him further away from hub of the market and into his house.

With his instruction I waited in the living room, which was about as kitsch as you can imagine with a hideous infusion of tastes (bad ones) from ornate multi-coloured plastic feather birds on the walls, to a trickling fountain with neon lights in the corner and fake flowers in a vase on the crocheted tablecloth. He went into his bedroom and came back out, emerging with something that definitely resembled an alarm clock –theirs.

It wasn’t really a travel alarm clock and its analogue design and juddering hands inspired little faith in me as to its effectiveness – Mexico isn’t really famous for its punctuality – but he assured me of its flawless performance. You know when you walk into a small store and you’re the only person inside and the desperate shop assistant is stalking you, jumping out behind a railing with an offer as you’re trying to subtly look around? I didn’t really feel I could refuse this purchase, however strange it was coming in to their house and buying pieces of it.

He opened a fridge full of beer and pulled down a wooden flap on the dresser to reveal a perfectly stocked liquor cabinet with glasses, decanters and the whole works, offering me cerveza, tequila, ron, or anything I wanted, eying me in a slightly inappropriate way. I decided that perhaps I had gone as far as I should have, seeing as I was in a perfect stranger’s living room in a city suburb in Mexico and it might not be the best idea. I decided to say my polite “thank yous” and make my exit, chuckling to myself as I made my way back towards my hotel, examining the alarm clock in my hand that would always have a story behind it whether it worked or not.

I’ve certainly done my share of travelling alone. I’ve felt just about as lonely and frightened and desperate as it’s possible to feel and then – even worse – returned to my own country, even more of a foreigner, with friends I can no longer relate to and with little tolerance for listening to what I’d been up to so many miles away. I’ve reckoned with the stark realisation that most of my adventures will only ever exist inside my own memory and only live as long as I do, or as long as I am conscious enough to remember. The beating orange sun that dissipated over the fortress of Campeche that night, the salty smell in the coastal air and the story behind the alarm clock will live inside of me only. That is the sad thing about travelling alone.

I remember one time in New Zealand, on an impulse I decided to do a skydive, free-falling over a vast expanse of volcanoes, lakes and steaming geezers, the wind penetrating my ears and rushing through my nostrils as I plummeted at more than 200km an hour towards the earth. My heart literally jumping out of my body and the adrenaline pumping through my veins for the entire day and I had no one to share it with. Such was the time difference I couldn’t call any friends in England and I certainly wouldn’t have called my parents, having promised not to do anything risky while I was away; my poor father exceptionally paranoid after my parachuting instructor in England died a few months before I left because of a mal-functioning shoot. So I just ran into the little shops in the sleepy town of Lake Tekapo yelling “I just did a skydive!! I just did a skydive!!” as the bemused assistants smiled blandly back at me; absurd foreign teenagers doing outlandish things was nothing unusual for them.

Today I’m on some fake beach in the South East of Mexico, my current home a God-forsaken cell-like room that would evoke fear in the hearts of the bravest of men and yet I feel strangely, spine-tingly alive... Viva Mexico!