PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Quintana Roo, May 25, 2022 — Over coffee with a friend I’ll call Luisa, I’m given the rundown on some system we’re all complicit in. That there are dark forces in the world, shadowy figures that want us to be unwell, eat foods that make us sick, use devices that facilitate the tracking of our movements and submit to vaccinations that were hastily manufactured.

She offers no specifics but adds ominously that when the time comes, their identities will be revealed and their comeuppance will be swift.

“I’m manifesting it,” she says.

Somewhere off 10th Avenue in Playa del Carmen

Then, just as quickly, she shifts, raving about some cleansing ceremony she went to the previous weekend — cacao, Reiki, Rainbow Rhythms, I can’t keep track.

It’s a little past 6 p.m. on a Wednesday somewhere off 10th Avenue in Playa del Carmen, and had I known our catch-up session would go like this, I’d have proposed a happy hour instead. You can never quite tell what mood someone will be in at this time of day, though I’m sure Luisa could recommend a retreat in Tulum that, for a nominal fee, could empower me to do so with no more than someone’s birth information. A cheaper option can be found on nearby blocks.

A golden hour tug-of-war

On Playa’s busiest walking streets, you sense the tug-of-war of golden hour most acutely. On some stretches, house music throbs lazily from restaurants as the sun sinks beyond the shore and people make their way home from the beach. But elsewhere, an undercurrent of reggaetón simmers, gradually coming to a boil as bars brace for nighttime business.

Beach cruisers glide along bike lanes, and taxi drivers idle along Avenida Benito Juárez, impassive and happy to loiter, yet willing to take you where you want to go as long as it’s really close or really far, never anything in between.

A slog of traffic

Their colectivo-driving counterparts enjoy no such luxury. Along 30th Avenue, their vans stop incessantly, either at designated locations or at the requests of passengers. Each time they lurch forward, a plume of black smog seeps out, lingering momentarily before the sea breeze folds the smell of engine exhaust into the city’s default aroma of brine and sargassum.

On single-lane streets, their progress grinds to a crawl, each van inching its way forward, hoping for an opening amid dense pedestrian traffic. Rarely, they’ll honk, startling meandering tourists whose faces are either red from embarrassment or too much sun. If all goes well, a path will open, allowing the van to slip through. Yet strangely, at this hour, the road traffic still flows more smoothly than foot traffic on the congested Quinta Avenida.

From Avenida Fundadores to Avenida Constituyentes, every block feels like a slog. The tourists are leisurely, stopping here and there to gander at gewgaws from storefronts whose gaudy signs advertise cheap tequila, handicrafts, flavored rum and “cloting.” Along the way, they’ll be intercepted intermittently by salespeople calling out, “Hola, bienvenidos” to Mexican-looking passersby and “Shopping, guys?” to gringos. A few others suggest services I won’t mention.

‘An evening stroll becomes a sport’

Farther north, stocky, straight-haired women will woo them with offers of “massage information,” an invitation that usually goes unanswered. Yet, as I was reminded when I opted to take this scenic route to my coffee date, even the slightest pause from a pedestrian entertaining this option can jam everything up.

An evening stroll becomes a sport, slithering through a sea of semi-static bodies. Older men in white linen shirts and pants, with acoustic guitars slung over their shoulders, looking for someone to serenade. Mariachis in cream-colored jackets, red bow ties and black chaps lined with gold buttons that run the length of the leg. A handful of Hasidic Jews waving yellow flags with Hebrew lettering, blasting some house rendition of Marc Anthony’s “Vivir Mi Vida.” Slender Mexican women with hair wrapped in tightly braided buns dressed like catrinas. And for some reason, a woman using an unoccupied stroller to wheel her husband’s now-empty case of beer around.

What’s a local?

The thing is, in the midst of this morass, I’ve lost the ability to discern who’s who. The term “local” becomes increasingly ill-defined because the only real common denominator is transience: wellness babes and crypto bros brushing shoulders with tourists and Mexican transplants here for high season. Elderly couples escaping the snow back home for a few months, then gone again. But while they’re here, they all become something else. A self-contained version that affirms their unique worldview without ever needing to apologize to woke folk or curmudgeonly conservatives back home. They become Luisa.

There’s a mystique around the Riviera Maya that attracts a certain kind of person. To simply label them “snowbirds” or “digital nomads” wouldn’t do them justice. “Entrepreneurs” abound. Life coaches, spiritual healers, Reiki therapists, ayahuasca shamans. Their qualifications aren’t always clear or existent, but what do I know?

‘Free to be who you want’

Sometimes, you hear them lean on words synonymous with metamorphosis in casual conversation, especially when promoting their services. I have to think it’s the cyclical nature of this place that lures them. If you know that people are only going to be here for so long, yourself included, the person you were before doesn’t matter — you’re free to be who you want, who you wish you were.

With enough practice, you may even become that person, or at least convince everyone else that you have. Maybe that’s what Luisa means when she says she’s manifesting.

Ethan Jacobs is a freelance writer and writing coach based in Playa del Carmen. He has written extensively in narrative and short fiction formats, and his work has received recognition both domestically and internationally in microfiction, short fiction and narrative essay formats.