Intro - Quintana Roo probably doesn't mean much to you. The Yucatan Peninsula probably means more. Cancun is that place in the sun that is touted as Mexico's greatest shopping spree, the centre of the best scuba diving in the world, the resort you are planning to go to some day. They are all linked together. The Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico has a line drawn through it, more or less NE to SW. On the western side is the State of Yucatan, capital the old Spanish-colonial city of Merida, most famous archaeological site Chichen Itza, where the Toltec observatory and pyramid do fabulous tricks at the equinoxes and solstices, attracting visitors like circus performances.

The indigenous people, and majority population, of Yucatan are Mayan (the Toltecs conquered them and were rulers for a time until the Spaniards put them in their place.)

On the eastern side of the line is the State of Quintana Roo, which contains the magnificent Mexican Caribbean coastline, with its resorts, beaches, reefs, environmental parks and non-Toltec ruins, each in competition, mostly destructive. Quintana Roo has only been a state since 1974. The people of Q.R. are Mayan too, but Mayan with a difference. They have been, and in some respects still are, determined separatists. Like the Indians of British Columbia, Canada, they do not consider themselves to have been legitimately conquered; but they lack the means to make an independence stick.

To understand this, you must know some things that are not in most of the history books. I looked through all the history books in English that were available in the poorly stocked book shops of Cancun (when you go to Cancun, the theory seems to be, you don't go to read), many of them classics. Most of them do not even have Quintana Roo in the index. They give chapters to the wars and the twentieth century revolution; and the works of Presidents constitute the organizing themes, like the works of Renaissance princes (who did a lot better). But the Mayans of Q.R.? Zilch. (There is a monograph I have not been able to consult by Nelson Reed, The Caste War of Yucatån, Stanford University Press, 1964; and a good summary of many features, but mainly dealing with events outside of Quintana Roo, in Demetrio Sodi Morales, The Maya World, published by Minutiae Mexicana, third edition, 1989.)

Yet.

The Spaniards made their influence felt, I won't say dominant, from the very earliest years, from the sea. The first Spanish explorers were scared stiff at what they saw, sailing past the coastal fortress and religious city of Tulum, afraid of its extensive population. For years after some of the coastal islands became playgrounds of Caribbean pirates, literally. But eventually, by persistent efforts, the Spaniards prevailed, on the surface. From time to time they were faced with Mayan armed protest, sometimes small, sometimes massive, not only in Quintana Roo, but in Chiapas and Yucatån.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, from 1847 to 1901, when their leader Santa Cruz de Bravo was captured and executed in the mystically famous town of the Talking Crosses, Chan Santa Cruz, the Mayans were in full fledged politico-religious revolt, known as the war of the castes. That was a long long time to be omitted from the history books. And long after the death of Santa Cruz there were forceful and psychological resistances in Quintana Roo. In all parts of Mayan country there are major examples of continuing religious syncretism, many with significant political overtones.

But then even by comparison with other states, to Mexico Quintana Roo and its Mayans were marginal. There wasn't much of an economy -- a little fishing, and great copra estates on the coast. For the rest, the Mayans were, and to some extent still are, hidden in the forests of the great limestone plain.

Once the revolt was officially quashed, the Mexicans didn't quite know what to do. They named Quintana Roo, not after a geographical or ethnic entity, but after a nineteenth century leader who was on the side of joining the Mexican State. The name continues to rankle among some. They gave Chan Santa Cruz the new name of Felipe Carrillo Puerto after a Mexican Revolutionary Governor, and made sure eventually that the streets of new towns honoured national Mexican patriots and archaeological sites, rather than Mayan heroes. They recognized that the Mayans of Q.R. were less tractable than those of Yucatan, within whose boundaries the territory formally lay, or at least they were less overlaid by Spanish-Mexican power -- sporadic revolts were still going on. The solution was to create the present boundaries and establish a political Territory, directly ruled from Mexico.

It didn't work. As I say, I don't have a history book to tell me why. The period is an embarrassment to officials, politicians and historians. All I know, and of all things it comes from the text attached to a poorly drawn map of the area, is that in 1913 Q.R. was attached to Yucatan, in 1931 it was moved into the State of Campeche, and in 1935 after only four years it became a federal Territory again -- until 1974. That does not sound like an easy-going peaceful kind of place.

If you cull the guide books carefully you occasionally get other snippets of information. You learn that much of the resistance was centred on the archaeological sites of Tulum and Cobå, and that Mayans still hold Tulum in religious awe, using it for ritual. In Tulum there is continuity.

Cobå is different. It was built by people with Guatemalan roots, then mysteriously abandoned, and only re-occupied by Mayans late in the nineteenth century, Mayans who had lost contact with it and who, as it were, began all over again. Although, probably because it was in an isolated inland situation, it became a resistance headquarters, its religious significance had to be re-invented. Today local people use it for Christian based worship, re-naming one of the most easily accessible pyramids "La Iglesia".

It does not take an anthropologist long to imagine and hypothesize the existence of significant messianic elements in the resistance, and quite possibly in some Mayan thought now. I looked through a bibliography of Quintana Roo in the little Cancun Museum, destroyed by hurricane Gilbert in 1988, and found nothing on this aspect of Mayan life. In fact there is very little written about Q.R. as such except for technical archaeology, economic analysis, and legal status. Perhaps if I looked through overseas journals I would find a little more.

I will get to food. If you are a tourist going to Cancun, what you as a consumer find by way of food will be influenced by the hidden history of the people who serve you in the hotels, drive your taxis, cook your meals, clean your rooms. Those who teach you scuba diving, comment on the tour buses, sell you condominiums, are more likely to be from Merida or Mexico. The population of Q.R. is being overlaid by national immigration. Mayan food, even that from Yucatan, is being hidden too. I wonder why?

Mexico, like France, despite talk of regional autonomy in both places, and despite the overt importance of Indian culture in that of the country, is a highly centralized state. As such it is in a continuous dialectic with a troublesome multiculturalism that the political system has not fully accommodated to. There is no university as yet in Q.R., no institution of higher learning, and the policies of research institutions such as those that deal with archaeology or museums are dictated from head offices in Mexico.

For most of its life the economy of Q.R. could be left in peace to muddle along in happy Caribbean fashion, supported by smuggling and tax free privileges in the capital of Chetumal, far to the south, on the Belize border. But the time arrived, in the '70s, when that could go on no longer. The copra industry was totally destroyed by the fall in world prices, world over-supply, and food-oil and soap-oil substitutes. Apart from fishing, there was nothing else. The people knew of greater wealth. The place, despite minimal social services, was a drain on the central government. Something had to be done.

As in so many poverty stricken resource poor Third World countries there was one answer. Tourism. Only the Club Med had discovered Quintana Roo, its unspoiled beaches and reefs. France was showing the way -- those magnificent built from scratch resorts along the Mediterranean coast. The Mexicans tried something similar. Aided by computer analysis, the Mexican Government decreed the establishment of a world class resort at Cancun, centred on an island to be linked by small bridges to the mainland and an airport. It cannot be a coincidence that the establishment of the State and the opening of the first resort hotel both took place in 1974. By that time the essential decisions had been taken and the infrastructure put in place. After statehood, the people would have a fait accompli. Since the huge development, with over two hundred hotels established in Cancun itself in sixteen years, would act as an enormous pole of attraction, it would pull in thousands of workers from the neighbouring districts, and managers from Mexico, not so subtly altering the political as well as the economic balance. New hotels are still being constructed, and the beaches all down the coast, as well as on the islands of Isla Mujeres and Cozumel, are being occupied. It is very difficult, until you get quite a long way south, to find a piece of beach that is not claimed by some development; and then, even south, it is one end to end line of litter. Only in the hotel areas is litter, partially, under control.

So what do you, my dear consumer of sun and sand, do with all this? If you are adventurous, knowledgeable, and lucky, and probably independent minded, you can explore what is left of nature before it goes. You can go off shore to scuba dive in and out of the boats that take you there. You can go south and inland into the reserved forests and take your time to explore the flora and the fauna. There is magnificent bird life, if you know where to look for it. You may be lucky, as I was, even without that knowledge, and see a troop of thirty ant-eaters scuttle in ones and twos across an isolated road. You will have difficulty camping on your own resources because of the high lime content and rarity of water supplies that characterize this huge once-underwater reef that constitutes Quintana Roo. If you are well-heeled you might try deep sea fishing.

The chances are you are not like that. If you come off the huge jets that land many times a day, you are here for a week, maybe two, of living it up. The hotels will help indeed. With a very few exceptions, their buildings and pools are Americanized blah, one hotel much like another, and almost all American owned.

But they compete to provide good restaurants with "international" food, and around and about you will find Mexican food designed for the overseas palate, even a little Mexican nouvelle cuisine, a bit of maybe Brazilian or Thai, quite a bit of Spanish. You will find McDonald's, Denny's (Mexicanized somewhat and with a bar, for gosh sakes'), Soft Rock Cafe, lots of Tex-Mex places catering to the world of the U.S. young, Pizza Hut, Señor Frog's. And outside there are taxis with drivers panting for your custom -- and line-ups to get in.

You might say, why come to Mexico for that? From this point of view there is not a thing here that you cannot get as well in Miami, Honolulu, or, better, in its French versions like La Grande Motte. So, soak up the sun, visit the magnificent walled site of Tulum if you can push past the other fifty tour buses (yes, I counted them) to enter the crowded cattle pen, and go home.

You might of course rent an apartment and a car to be a little more independent. You have heard about the cheapness of Mexico, so why not? You will find beautiful apartments at $200 a night, and Volkswagen Beetles and the like for $1200 a month. Yes. That is if you book from abroad. To do otherwise takes the time of searching around and bargaining like crazy. And if you are stuck on American food you find it alright and pay enormous prices in specialty supermarkets.

Pay in advance can be the key. After all they then have the use of your money. When I went to an international car company to bargain I used a local advertisement which said $19.50 a day -- instead of $40 -- for a Beetle. Sorry, they said, that is only a promotion if you are staying in such and such a hotel (the ad. didn't say that) -- and you must pay 17 cents a kilometre as well. A bit more persistence, some pro forma discussion with head office at the airport. O.K., tell you what. We give you a nice Beetle. It's waiting for you. Two months. 10,000 kilometres a month free. Good deal? $20 a day. But you pay one month cash now. Second month you can pay credit card. OK? OK.

Later I found deals could have been struck without the monthly ploy. And all around the hotel zone there were the little car hire firms that had touts offering cars for $15 a day, unlimited mileage.

Outside the hotel zone, on the mainland, is the large attractive city of Cancun itself, population 650,000 according to brochures, known as Cancun town in the local patois. It has large boulevards, parks, many fine hotels that have much more character than most of those in the hotel zone, often in quiet suburban streets. It has a main drag called Avenida Tulum, with six lanes of traffic neatly separated by great bird-filled trees, even pedestrian cross-walks that really work -- and a couple of other main streets, that are full of what the tourist imagines as Mexican restaurants -- and boutiques. Many of the restaurants are open to the air, full of action, touts calling you in, menus full of lobster and steak, huge breakfasts, mariachis, everything for a holiday. There are side streets off Tulum where you find even more restaurants, with names like El Pirata or La Bucañero. Sometimes you can get really fresh fish. There's an Italian restaurant where you can get tiramisu made with rum, and some very fancy hacienda type places with beautiful sculpture and fountains, and international food (Mexican, Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian). The ambience is often smart and romantic, and in the hotel zone the vistas of sea and light can be out of this world.

But I was, alas, not looking for romance. I wanted unusual food. I did not spend my time trying to determine whether the Italian was as good as in Rome or the Spanish as in Madrid. Why come to Cancun for international food? You are in Mexico, and not just Mexico, you are in the midst of Yucatecan Maya culture. Don't they have food? So I searched for it, and found it. It is not your North American Mexican, or even national Mexican food. You will find some reference to some Yucatecan dishes in Mexican cook books, but, for example, one very good one that I have, written and published in Mexico, gives only three in the whole book. Ortiz identifies some dishes as Yuacatecan or Mayan in her cookbooks on Latin America and on Mexico; the otherwise excellent book by Diana Kennedy hardly at all (although both books refer to dishes such as muc-pil chicken, ixni-pec sauce, fish in mac-cum, which I was unable to find anywhere in Quintana Roo, though they are probabaly available in Merida). As with politics, Cancun offers a conspiracy of near silence. The tour guides don't feature it, and there is only one Yucatecan restaurant in the whole complex that is somewhat known in the tourist advertising world, Los Almendros. Yet, if I may say so, it is damn good cooking, with often beautifully subtle sauces, different herbs, and lots of fun.

I cannot pretend to know what there is to know about this extraordinarily rich kind of food. In the first place I don't know Spanish, and many of my conversations had to be in pidgin Spanish or sign language. Still, it is remarkable what can be communicated sometimes. Further, many of the words used are peculiar to Mexico, and...

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