Sun shining down, warm like honey or the pockets of one with money, gently soothing the scalps of foreign heads. Twenty-four degrees and sunny, the alleged average winter. Twenty-eight and sunny in summer too, they say, like some bizarre freak of climate in the middle of the wide ocean. The main strip, the metropolitan plaza, littered with moving bodies - clutters of faces and tribes similar only to one another - weaving in and around each other with a general disassembly reserved only for clueless vacationers, wandering idly in search of their next mealtime destination or cheap seaside gimmick.
Overhead, fairy terns with heads capped black chirp and squawk wildly, beating wings in the sky above, diving in and out around tall buildings and trees, betwixt the beach and the bustle in a frenzy, bewildered and afraid. The air is speckled with salt that tickles your nostrils on every inward breath, punctuated by a kind of citrusy freshness, the kind of clear oxygen-filled air that only swirls about seaside towns in foreign island lands unknown to all but the natives whom tear at the eyes with the memory and the notion that their land was once their own; paradise, unadulterated.
As we wander through and around the bustling crowds of aimless tourist passersby, travelling either to or from their hotel reservations, the scenery starts to change. The urban-tropic tourism-chic gives way to dark side streets and downtown parkland. Thick mobs of laze-hungry vacationers peter out into small groups. Throngs of youths wander by, sunglasses concealing tired-looking eyes - eyes that seem to buzz with chemical distress, pupils wide, eyes that search for weakness. Old men sit on benches staring blankly into the distance, neither here nor there. The identities of those with money and that of the poor and disenfranchised become indistinguishable from the waist down, a chaotic heave of thong-wearing feet. A woman lies asleep in front of a grandiose and glamorous boutique, which reads 'Prada' above the doorway in large gold letters, the womans' bags strewn upon the floor around her - the ultimate capitalist juxtaposition.
We pass the sleeping subject, and the smell is unbearable. She snores. Her cheeks are dirty and pale. Maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. Another import. You don't need money when it's sunny all the time.
