"I am not an author like authors on your web page or even an adult, but I have been traveling for a long time. I'm still in High School, but I have seen many places. I speak several languages that I learned on my travels. I have not traveled out of the Americas but I will soon. I'm just a kid who likes to backpack from place to place and see the world for what it really is. I do have dreams of becoming an author and seeing much of the world. I am sixteen and I have already seen much of Brazil, America, Paraguay and the Caribbean islands. There is nothing special about me except for the fact that I like to travel. When I turn 18 I'll probably take two years off school to go on an international Odyssey.
I was born in Mato Grosso, Brazil in the Amazon Basin. I left Brazil at a young age after the Amazonian gold rush had died out. I have seen many beautiful places and many dreaded sights. I currently live in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C. and I try to get out as much as possible.
I'm still in High School, but I'm not there much of the time. I travel a lot and this year I spent 60 days away from school. I am young, but already I have the spirit of a journeyman, a vagabond. I can't stay put too long. It's just not me.
Walter"
I set out to Mexico only for a short time last month. I didn't plan on staying long due to the fact that I am saving for my one year journey around the world. I also didn't want to stay that long on the Mexican Riviera, because of the incredible amounts of tourists.
I left from D.C. and headed south for the Yucatan Peninsula. I arrived in Cancun and rested a while in a very lofty hotel. All of the hotels in Cancun are lofty, even the bad ones. For all the backpackers out there; Cancun is not backpacker country nor will it ever be. The city was built in the seventies specifically as a tourist attraction. It's just like Disney Land, but with Mexicans and a few more animals.
I tried to find the hidden Mexico in Cancun, but it just didn't exist. The whole place was tourist oriented. I had read books on hidden places in and around Cancun, but when I arrived at these places they were crawling with tourists.
I left for a small Island called the Isla Mujeres to look for an ancient Mayan ruin that was said to be hard to reach and very isolated because of the lack of paved roads and thick vegetation. But when I got there the jungle was hacked down, the roads had been paved, and no one was allowed to come close to the ruins. The place sickened me so I left the fake Cancun and headed south, down the cost of the Yucatan.
There is a main road down the Mexican Riviera called the Tourist Corridor because of all the tourist stops like Xcaret, Xel-Ha (which was a Mayan ruin cut straight down the middle to make a highway) and Tulum. The sides of the highway are marked by many little shops for the tourists, but the tourists never stop at these little stands. They merely drive on past. This was where I found backpacker country and several backpackers.
There are so many small towns and villages down the Tourist Corridor (Highway 307) that it is difficult to remember their names. Most have Mayan names that are hard to pronounce. I traveled these little villages meeting very nice and warm hearted people. The food and small, but very clean, hotels and hostels were so cheap that it made me want to stay longer. What I spent on food and lodging in Cancun was more than enough for me to stay in one of the small towns for over a week. If you ever go to the Yucatan don't stay in Cancun. There are many places right on the beach that are a whole better and cheaper.
I visited much of the little towns and the ruins (which were crawling with tourists) and didn't have enough time to enter the backcountry or make a quick stop in Belize. I only stayed a week and a week is never enough. I had to go back to D.C. or I was going to lose my job.
I left kind of sad and disappointed that the whole place was just a big tourist attraction. I was looking for more culture, but all I found were people trying to make money and tourists getting drunk. On top of all this I still wish I could have stayed longer.
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