I had come from Belize City 10 hrs on a bus to Tulum and finding the hotel near the bus station to be too pricey I took a cab to the beach and walked up and down the beach at 10pm looking for a cabyana. I was just about to give up when I ran into a contemplative Dutchman named Jeremiah who was doing the same thing, and after a short discussion, we decided to pool our resources. We had no luck so we went back to the outdoor restaurant where he left his stuff. There sleeping was the guy he met on the bus up from Livingston and all he knew about him was the he was Hungarian and Mad and possibly a criminal. So that's where I spent the night.

The next morning we woke up and went to the rental hut and the guy told us 130 pesos for a place, which was about double what we were hoping to pay. He told us one should be available later. so J. wandered off to check other places and I watched our stuff.

He came back with the Mad Hungarian(MH) and we decided to wait for a place to open up. I had yet to speak with MH (my first conversation with him went like this)

MH: Do you know anything about dreams? I am having a dream about making the bread. You know the way they make bread here. I am dreaming I am making the bread in this way. What do you think this means?

J.: I think bread means money.

MH: Ah, so I am going to be making the money. That is good news. if I am making much money I will become a vegetarian again. It is not so cheap here to be a vegetarian, you know.

We decided to go 3 ways on a room, with MH paying more because he wanted an actual bed, while i had my sleeping bag and J. a hammock. So we finally finagled a cabana, which was nothing more than some sticks stuck inot the sand, tied together, and covered with some palapa leaves. It did have a chain and padlock. Except that you could move some of the branches enough for a child to squeeze thru. So I decied to leave my bag in the office.

I went for a swim in the sea and talked to the dutchman, who along with being a vegetarian, is also a filmmaker who makes non-narrative driven films. I asked him about MH. He didnt even know the guys name. the hungarian apparently has 3 passports and a bunch of wild stories.

Later we were all eating lunch, and we asked the MH his name. He says, call me any name you want, I have many names. Finally we got it out of him that his name way Alfred, and he told us how in Germany, , he and a friend once put on blue workmans overalls, walked into a casino with a dolly, put a "defective" sticker on one of the slot machines, and wheeled it right out without arousing any suspicions. After he got up, J. turned to me and said, you know, this guy is a total criminal, but for some reason im not worried about sharing a room with him. I said I felt the same way.

Later Alfred and I snuck into the ruins at Tulum, not because we didn't want to pay, but just to sneak in, which required climbing along a cliff over the water and going through a barbed wire fence. He took me to dinner that night at the restuarant we slept the first night and he told me by the time he was 21 he had been on every continent. He is a head waiter in Nuremberg and spends six months working and 6 months travelling. He speaks 7 languages, four fluently. He was married once but his wife couldn't put up with his wanderings so now he has a girlfriend who is okay with it. He caught malaria in Thailand and in Indonesia once ate bugs for money so he could pay for a ferry off an island. He said he fucked his way from Jakarta to Bangcock and never used a condom and the one time he did it broke and he got ghonneria.

J. had showed up by this point having not found us anywhere else and he and Alfred started arguing about vegatarianism in German and I sat quietly for awhile and listened to the boom-crack! as waves broke in white lines on the black Sea. Alfred bought me a glass of red wine and we toasted Mexico and J. pointed out to me where to find Taurus in the night sky. MH wanted to see some big Mayan ruins(Tulum is rather small) but thought Chichen itza was too far away since he had to be in Cancun and catch a plane it two days. I told him there were some big ruins called Coban about 45 minutes from here but there were no buses and we'd have to hitchhike.

So the next day we went out to the main highway and got a ride in a pickup. The ruins were incredible. They're mostly unexcavated so you feel like Indiana Jones. The paths are narrow and statues pop up out of nowhere. While we were there it downpoured and we hid from the rain by sitting with our backs to a stella and holding a couple palapa leaves over our heads. After it rained it was all steamy and and we hitched another ride back to Tulum.

When we all went out separate ways the next day, he gave me his address and email in phone number in Nuremberg and said anytime I'm in the area I'm welcome to stay at his place. I'm not sure about when I will be in Nuremberg next.