I don’t know if it’s worth mentioning, but I had visited Mexico many years before my trip to Cancun. I think it was back in 2006. A friend and I flew to Puerto Vallarta, and from there, we took a bus along a winding road that cut through lush tropical forests I still yearn to explore. We eventually arrived in El Tuito, where we were warmly hosted by a family that owned and operated a pineapple plantation.

I went to Puerto Vallarta on a whim, spurred by heartbreak. It felt somehow significant that the first sight I saw upon arriving in the small town was a procession of mourners crowded around a horse-drawn wagon, a coffin resting on the flat deck. The mourners moved slowly, as though death was not a tragic event, but part of an unspoken cycle—inevitable, familiar. In contrast, back home, death was something to be feared, hidden behind closed doors and hushed whispers. At that moment, I felt the weight of this difference, like a door had opened, revealing a secret I wasn’t supposed to know.

Later, I wandered through town and stopped in front of a shop window displaying Día de los Muertos dolls—skeletons dressed in bright, festive clothing, grinning as though they knew something the living didn’t. The store was closed, or I would have gone inside, but those skeletal faces left a deep impression on me. It seemed as though in Mexico, death was a long-lost friend—never an unwelcome stranger. The sight of those dolls stayed with me, their grins both mocking and reassuring like they had accepted something I was still running from.

On the second or third day in El Tuito, our hosts invited us to visit a protected beach that was home to a sea turtle conservation project. A group of university students patrolled the beach, protecting it from poachers and ensuring that as many eggs hatched as possible. They escorted the tiny turtles to the sea, guiding them across the perilous stretch of sand. I stood there, watching those small creatures struggle toward the ocean, fighting a battle they didn’t even know they were in. It was heartening to see the students treating the turtles with such reverence, showing compassion for our fellow creatures. Their effort to rescue these animals from the damage we had caused was a glimmer of hope in a world that often felt indifferent.

But even then, standing on that beach, a strange thought crossed my mind: what if I never left? What if this was the end of the road for me? Sometimes, I wonder if I died in Mexico, and that everything since then has been nothing more than a vision from the afterlife. Maybe my long-decayed skeletal remains are still lying at the bottom of some jungle ravine, like the body of Geoffrey Firmin in Under the Volcano, ravaged by dogs. It’s an unsettling thought, but one that’s hard to shake.

That first trip to Puerto Vallarta felt like a journey to the heart of something raw and real—a place where life and death coexisted in a strange harmony. It was a place where the boundaries between the two blurred, and I felt connected to something larger, something ancient. But my more recent trip to Cancun? It felt empty, like a hollow echo of that earlier experience. The ruins and the cenote were beautiful, but they seemed like relics of something long gone, reminders of a past I couldn’t touch. In Cancun, I felt only a deep, joyless emptiness.

I often think back to that beach in El Tuito, watching the turtles struggle toward the sea, and I wonder if I was left behind. If the man who returned from Mexico was just a hollow shell of who I once was. The vibrant colours, the heat, the smell of the ocean—they all feel distant now, like memories from another life. Perhaps they are. Perhaps my soul stayed behind on that beach, watching the turtles slip into the ocean, while the rest of me carried on, going through the motions of life without ever truly returning.

The turtles had a purpose, an instinct guiding them toward the sea. But me? I came back from Mexico feeling lost, as though I had no direction, no reason to keep pushing forward. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever find it again. Maybe I’m still searching for that same clarity, the same sense of purpose I glimpsed so briefly on that beach, before it slipped away, just out of reach.