At first I just wanted to write a little update on the current situation here in Mazunte, and share my unexpectedly positive experiences of yesterday’s outing. Then I realized, this would be a perfect entry to Hive account@ecotrain’s Question of the Week about the changes we’d like to see once the Corona pandemic has blown over. Finally, it gave me the perfect opportunity for a #nsfw tag, as I would not post one without a good reason. I hope the three can fit well together in one post.

Fantasmazunte? – Not Quite!

The “voluntary lockdown” has been in place for three weeks, and the streets of Mazunte are empty like a ghost town… or so we heard, as we had been keeping mostly to our property too. The beach was declared off-limits, and since the ocean is currently quite violent anyway, we have been talking walks into the nearby hills instead. But yesterday we felt like venturing back towards the town and the beach again. We were in for a bit of a surprise.

The town seemed amazingly vibrant, at least compared to the ghost-town we’d expected. People were walking up and down the streets, even in small groups, and though most places were closed, some little shops had their wares hung up around open doors. I decided to try my luck, and asked the vendor if he had any beer. He saw my backpack and nodded affirmative, reaching into his own fridge behind the counter. I opened my pack and he put the beer straight into it. “It’s all contraband now,” he said with a grin.

The Ever Blurring Lines Between Legal and Illegal

We chose Playa Cometa, the smallest of the beaches in the area, right by the geographically noteworthy Punta Cometa, where the Pacific Coast of Mexico suddenly turns towards North-East. Walking out there we had a picture-perfect view of the main beach of Mazunte: not more than a handful of people! At Cometa there were at least four times as many, all in separate groups, enjoying the sun and playing in the strong waves. We took a quick dip, shared a joint, a few beers, some good laughs, and a superb sunset, before making our way back home.

This wonderful experience inadvertently put a few things into perspective. With the recently instated ban on alcohol, smoking cannabis has suddenly became an even lesser deal (though nobody ever cared about weed smoke in Mazunte). Also, nobody was wearing a face-mask to the beach, and the groups generally kept a good amount of distance between each other, so it really did not matter if someone took off all of their clothes too. The old rules didn't matter any longer. The painted sign on the wooden board emphasized this irony so ideally, that I could not resist having a provocative picture taken.

Let’s Cut All The Bullshit!

If these current restrictions are kept up, how are they going to affect our previously ingrained rules, that we have been following, only to avoid punishment? I’m talking about regulations that we all know are utterly pointless, such as having to carry your liquor in a brown paper bag, or laws that only protect the one adhering to it, like not being allowed to ride a motorcycle (or a bicycle for that matter) without a helmet.

Once we’ve gotten past the obligatory face-mask issue, it won’t be a big deal to walk into a café without a shirt on. Or if it is for you, you will not wait for someone to enforce the rules, but will kindly explain to the topless person why it’s a problem for you. Likewise, one would hope that after Covid… law enforcement would not care if you did not have a smoke detector in your home. Instead, it would be your concern for your neighbors that would make you not burn down your house.

Because in the end, it is up to us to decide, individually and collectively, what kind of world we want to live in, and under what kind of rules. So sure, while all of us on Playa Cometa probably realized how ridiculous and pointless it was of the authorities to shut down the beach, we also respected each other enough not to walk up to other groups, like it used to be the norm, or swim out to where the waves are the most dangerous. Because living outside of the law requires a higher degree of responsibility, exciting and liberating as it may be.

This is nothing new for people who have been following anarchistic philosophies, but now it’s the mainstream folks that will be confronted with this. What is allowed, what is forbidden, how much is there between the two? It doesn’t need a lot of scratching to bring this entire legal=good, illegal=bad paradigm come crashing down. And thanks to the current COVID crisis there is whole lot of scratching going on. So bringing it back to Hive account@ecotrain’s QOTW, what I hope to see after the crisis, is that people in general took a greater part in ruling themselves, using their reason, their respect for others, and if in doubt, communication regarding what each side wants. Sure, at the present moment we may still seem a bit far away from such a reality. However, yesterday at the beach it seemed to have worked quite well.

Read the Whole Series!

This is part of my series on how the Coronavirus has affected life in a small surfer town on the coast of southern Mexico. If you’re interested in the earlier parts of story, please check out these previous posts:

COVID in Paradise – Hoping for Less Bullshit After Corona