a pair of gold bells

a pair of gold bells

in the white church tower below

the moon, above balloons 

Our first night in Playa del Carmen, we walk the main street, a pedestrian street running parallel to the beach. At one end, near the ferry dock, we pass a beautiful little church, Nuestra Senora del Carmen, with its twin golden bells lit up in the white triple arched tower. A wedding is underway inside, while outside a balloon seller hawks his wares and the veiled moon looks down on the white sand beach, the white church and the wide street full of people.

sugar sand, silver

sugar sand, silver

waves, brown pelicans diving,

blue and yellow ferries

Our first sight of the beach at Xaman Ha' (Maya for "waters of the north") is on a cloudy afternoon in early March. Xaman Ha', renamed Playa del Carmen by the Spanish, was originally a small fishing village and rest stop for travelers from the great Mayan cities to the island of Cozumel. Today, Playa is a busy balneario, a seaside resort on the Caribbean coast in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It's a popular tourist city, though not as crowded as Cancún. We're staying in Alhambra Hotel, right on the beach, so naturally the first thing I do is walk in the lapping waves, laugh at the antics of brown pelicans diving for fish, and watch the blue and yellow Cozumel ferries pulling in and out of the dock.

on a black sand beach

on a black sand beach

two lovers lie together

in their last embrace

Robin woke up in the middle of the night, calling out. Turned on the light and tried to answer her cell phone. She thought someone was trying to reach her.
          This afternoon, as we are returning from Ubud to Nyuh Kuning, Kadek stops on his motorcycle. He says something to Robin and I catch the word "suicide." Robin is teary as he takes off. She says a young couple committed suicide on the beach. The young man, 26, shy, sensitive, is from the family compound we stopped at after the wedding. The girl was 18 and they were engaged. In the Balinese tradition, she had been living with his family for three years, waiting to finish high school before the wedding ceremony.
          Two days ago there had been a big rainstorm, untimely in this season. The girl is waiting for her fiance to pick her up after school, but he hasn't shown up and she's getting soaked. Another boy offers her a ride on his motorcycle, but instead of taking her home, he takes her to his house to watch TV. A friend tells the fiance that his girl is with another guy. He goes to the house, sees them sitting on the couch together and jumps to the conclusion that they're having an affair. He tells his parents and her parents and both sets of parents kick her out. She has nowhere to go. When he realizes he's destroyed her with his false accusations, they go to the beach, lie down in a final embrace and drink insecticide together, a horrible death.
          Some relatives from Nyuh Kuning were among the crowd who found them. They left a note asking to be buried together. Not possible, since they weren't married, though they did have legal papers to get married. No one wants the bodies. They probably won't be cremated, ever, a terrible fate for the Balinese soul.
          The whole village is now "dirty" for 42 days. The odalan for the founding of the village temple, scheduled to take place in four days, has been called off. We will not see anymore ceremonies -- no weddings allowed. Robin says it's the witch's black magic.