Many years ago, in a time before children where we were free to roam god’s great earth with reckless abandon, my wife and I spent our honeymoon in Mexico. We were staying on the east coast, near Playa del Carmen, along the Yucatan. I’ve always been fascinated by ancient civilisations, so we decided to do the trip to Chichén Itzá. One of the great ancient Mayan cities, located far off in the jungle, so it’s an all day thing.

We got up, had some breakfast, and headed to the pick up point where a small bus was waiting for us. It was here that we were first introduced to the man, the myth, the legend - Raymundo. (From here forth, it helps if every time you read the word ‘Raymundo’ you hear it in a Latin accent, you know with the roll of the tongue on the R, and maybe you hear like a cool rattlesnake noise or something as well.)

How do I describe Raymundo (do the thing)… well, imagine Danny Trejo’s third cousin, all of that presence and aura but on a bus instead of a desert town holding a machete, with one crazy eye that sometimes hid behind an eye patch. Mexican Pirate Danny Trejo. This was our tour guide.

So we get on the bus, and it’s a small group, maybe 8-10 of us, and the bus is probably whatever you’re imagining a small bus in Mexico to look like. You know, regularly serviced. In peak condition. Not a spot of rust. Raymundo closes the doors, and proceeds to shout:

“Hola! My name is Raymundo, is everybody excited!?”

Some murmurs come from the bus.

“Good! Because today we going tooooo…. GUATEMALA!!! I have just released from long stay in Mexico prison, and I need to cross border as soon as possible, so let’s go!”

The vibe shift in the bus was amazing. He even let it sit in the air for a minute or so as the bus took off before following up:

“Noooo we not going Guatemala, we going Chichén Itzá! hahahah!”

Incredible performance. Imagine Javier Bardem playing Danny Trejo as a Mexican pirate on a tour bus. The look on people’s faces, the Americans especially, a tenuous mix of relief and trepidation. This guy was fucking bonkers. Let’s go, indeed.

From here, it was a long drive through the jungle where Raymundo regaled us with anecdotes about the passing sights and scenes, occasionally stopping somewhere interesting between shots of mezcal. Local village. Mezcal shot. Cenote. Mezcal shot. Silver mine. Mezcal shot. At this point I should note that Raymundo (just checking if you’re still doing the thing) was not actually driving the bus, although to be completely honest, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was. Not everyone on the bus was totally embracing the full Raymundo experience either, but I was all in. If Raymundo had a shot, I had a shot. And along with another guy from Texas, relocated to the front of the bus to have front row seats to the Raymundo show.

Now several mezcal breakfast shots in, Raymundo announced that we would soon stop for lunch at a Mayan village. It was the last sign of life before we got to Chichén Itzá, so everyone was to eat and drink and do whatever they needed to before the journey continued. Before we left the bus, Raymundo announced that we should try the village’s specialty, the “Mayan chicken”. I say “Mayan chicken” in quotation marks because that is also how Raymundo described it. With air finger quotation marks. He would not elaborate any further on the Mayan chicken other than we ‘had to try it’, which was also always followed by laughter. Quite the sign of reassurance.

The food in the village did look amazing though. Groups of women chatted away while deftly crushing and rolling flour into tortillas by hand before tossing them on to a huge plate sitting over a fire pit. As a lover of Mexican food, this was a sight far more majestic than a microwaved packet of Mission tortillas from Coles. We moved around the village grabbing bits and bobs, rice, vegetables, meat, before Raymundo pointed out where the “Mayan chicken” was. No one was keen. The Texan and I gave each other a look and went, hey, when in Maya do as the Mayans do. The “Mayan Chicken” was basically a large pot full of fiery red sauce with nondescript pieces of meat floating around in it. I wouldn’t say it looked off-putting, but I did note that the ‘cuts’ of meat were unfamiliar. I couldn’t really make out wings or drummies or breasts or the usual shape of chicken you’d get in your quarter chicken and chips from the charcoal chicken shop back home, but we were in the middle of a jungle village, maybe they cut it differently here, and it was doused in so much sauce it was near impossible to see the meat anyway.

The “Mayan Chicken” did, in fact, taste close enough to chicken. And, given the ten megatons of red sauce it was cooked in, acted mostly as a bed for the sauce. It was fine, it was pretty good. We finished up and loaded back on to the bus where Raymundo offered us a shot of mezcal.

From here, it was more Raymundo madness, I think at some point he did vocal impressions of a jaguar and some local birds. Having never heard a jaguar or local Mexican birdcalls prior to Raymundo’s jungle karaoke I cannot comment on the quality of the performance other than he was indeed making strange noises with his mouth. We also stopped at a little stall where people were selling stuff. He said you had to be careful of counterfeit items. I found a cool Mayan-calendar-mandala-looking thing carved out of bone and Raymundo came and bit the side of it with his molars and gave me the thumbs up. I’m not sure if this is an effective way to test the authenticity of a Mayan-calendar-mandala-looking thing carved out of bone and whether it would be accepted by Christie’s as so, but who am I to argue? We then had another shot of mezcal.

When we finally arrived at Chichén Itzá, Raymundo asked if anyone had, in fact, ‘tried the Mayan chicken’, me and the Texan put our hands up. Raymundo laughed and asked us what we thought. We nodded, good, yeah, was alright.

“Ahhhhh you like, huh? THAT IS IGUANAAAAA!”

Ohhh Raymundo, you crafty old dog. To be honest, I probably still would’ve tried it even if he’d have told us it was iguana at the time. As the saying goes, when in Maya do as the Mayans do. Our adventures continued on around the grounds of Chichén Itzá, but I’ll digress from here.

What is the point of this story? Why am I telling you about my adventures with Raymundo? Because Chichén Itzá is one of the most amazing places I’ve been, and I’m not even gonna bother going into it. Because, still to this day, whenever someone mentions anything Mexico-related, the first thing I think of is Raymundo. Every time. Without fail.

What point is there in being here if you aren’t leaving some kind of a mark. An impression. A memory. A small indentation on whatever the hell this experience is that we’re all having. To create things is to exist.

And as obsessed as we are with likes and shares and sales and ROI and metrics and results, that is not the place to create from. Some of the thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences, tears and laughter we can evoke from others are seismic in comparison, whether they win an award or not. Just like Raymundo. A memory that is now permanently, universally, eternally linked to anything remotely Mexico-related. Or even just travel-related. There he is, in my brain, his weird eye off to the side, telling a story and drinking mezcal.

And, perhaps cynically in comparison, but true nonetheless, this is the power we have in advertising. To inextricably link feelings and emotions and experiences, positive ones, to the brands we work on. The type of ‘ROI’ that doesn’t necessarily show up on a report, or that can be achieved via a ‘template’ or ‘best practice’, because it hasn’t been done yet. You can’t template a Raymundo and he would never make it through the first round of research, let’s be honest.

But the world needs more Raymundos. If all we’re making and consuming is what’s expected and what’s safe and what’s already been seen and done a thousand times, then we’re all just one big long human centipede, aren’t we?

And who wants to be that?

Whatever you’re creating at the moment, an ad, a piece of art, a piece of music, a poem, make someone’s day.

Make them try the Mayan chicken.

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