Mass Tourism
The mass tourism complex is designed to make me a massive dickhead. What do I mean? As a dickhead, I can’t relate to others, my interactions are superficial and transactional. The contact with local nature offered me is a picture with a tied up monkey or “having an intimate moment” with a trained macaw on my arm. What ever scraps of the local culture and idiosincracy I can pick up, is inbetween tips and piña coladas with the waiter and Uber drivers from one party to the next. A feeling of local merengue and bachata gets mushed together with mindless reggaeton, foam guns and animators making me want to shoot myself. Am I the bigger dickhead for not going with the flow?
From Day 1 in the massive diner, the clinking of thousands of plates, the quick and abrupt waiters, the over abundance of French fries and donuts, has me eating quicker that I usually would. What would happen if all this food suddenly was no longer available to me — make haste, there’s still so much more to try. “I feel like a chubby kid in a candy store, its no good for my gluttony” – lets top it off with a purple cocktail, and now blue, coconut and tequila why not.
Soda fountains everywhere I look. Music and noise in every corner. On the beach its this tour and that, or this craft, this drug or that. It took an overhaul of my freewill to stop drinking and eating, to go sit in silence on the beach. I was feeling quite a bit like a goaded passenger on rails from the spaceship in Wall-E. God forbid there be a derailing of human touch – of sharing of human sentiment beyond merriment and drunken stupor. But after all that’s what we’re here for, a bachelor’s party, I should probably know better. How to partake?
It’s a well oiled machine, that I can appreciate. Food is quite good and served at every hour of the day. There’s never a lack of service, beer or water. Water slides, party zone and night club, shows and fitness. Kayaks and snorkels- these guys are masters at fun. But where is a discussion group, a chance to learn, a chance to help? Not a mention of sustainability, of culture, history or any kind of reminder of where were dazing. Could be any beautiful, turquoise Caribbean beach in the world.
