February 28, 2015Mmmmmm....Mmmmmm....I love siestas! Not sure how it is possible to sleep so much but both Lynda and I are rising to the occasion and doing our best. LOL
Wandering around Campeche this morning we saw massive gates into the city (sea gate pictured above) little doors within big doors, doors in walls that open into grand homes complete with courtyards, windows with magnificent iron work coverings (you can see the size when you look at my head in the photo and consider that I'm standing and the window comes right down to the ground!), and doors that lead into tiny taquerias where they serve muy rico conchitas (pictured above). A conchita is typical local fare for breakfast or lunch (so only served in the morning) and as the photo shows...it is a bun that has been lightly toasted/grilled and stuffed with meat of your choice, lettuce, tomato, onion, and avocado. It was yummy! One interesting and funny thing I will add about this little taqueria place is about the napkins in the holder on the table. This little place had them alright but they sure weren't conducive to absorbing much! They were in fact little pieces of paper - plain kraft paper - the lightweight kind, that had been torn (neatly of course) into rectangle pieces. There is one under my sandwich on the plate too....now that's efficiency for you! Super cost effective, definitely ineffective for blowing your nose, completely effective if you roll it up to use as a tooth pick! LOL! Something new every day!!
We had planned to go to Joanna's place (the girl we met the night before) but when we got there and looked at the menu...it was a little rich and a little touristy for what we were planning on so we decided to move along to something a little more in line with our tastes and our budget.
After breakfast we managed to re-find the "Italian Coffee Company" shop that Lynda spied while we were out yesterday and that resulted in two moka frappuccinos and a piece of rom poppe with coconut cake. Rom Poppe is a Mexican alcoholic beverage that I discovered a few years ago. It goes VERY NICELY in coffee and is my Mexican version of Baileys in coffee and you all know how I feel about Baileys in Coffee! LOL!!
While we were out housekeeping was in and because nothing really dries here....the marble floors in our room were like a skating rink when we returned. That's not to say that they were cold...just slippery! Dangerously so. To mitigate that danger, Lynda in her creative genius came up with a solution. She put a towel on the floor and "skated" wherever she needed to go. It was quite a sight! LOL!
Just back from our evening adventures. This afternoon before going out and as I rolled over from my second snooze and said, "It's so great to have NOTHING to do" I realized that Mexico is where a lazy summer day lasts for weeks. Wahoo! Now before you go getting all envious over that very self centred statement I'll give you something to provide you with some additional perspective that will give you as much cause to laugh as it gave Lynda and I. Almost immediately after I said "it's so great to have nothing to do" Lynda played a video link from her FB page that was all about how men's brains have boxes and women't brains have wires that govern their thinking processes. Before you read any further on this blog please go to you tube and search for Mark Gungor and A Tale of Two Brains so you can enjoy the comedian who is describing that process. Once you've watched the link you'll understand why I had to change the statement about Mexico being a place where a lazy summer day lasts for weeks to...Mexico is where everyone learns to think like a man. LOL!
Once we finally made it back out onto the street (it was almost 6:00!) we were treated to much cooler temps than had been there when we left it about 4 hours earlier. There was a nice little breeze and it was so enjoyable to wander down the cobblestone streets looking at the rainbow of coloured houses...all with their iron work windows and little balconies. Campeche Historic District truly is a pretty little place and even though we thought we'd get lost in no time after only two days we have completely got the lay of the land figured out. On our way to find a spot for dinner (we had shrimp on our mind again) we came across a family with two young children playing ball on one of the pedestrian streets. The little girl was 5 and her brother 9. In no time at all Lynda was playing catch with the little girl and the young boy was performing for me. He was actually quite amazing with his little india rubber ball (those small hard rubber balls). He would bounce it off the wall of the buildings and catch it in a disposable plastic cup from whatever direction it came rebounding back to him. He gave me the ball and the cup to try it and trust me when I say it is NOT as easy as he made it look! It sure left an impression on me about how kids here know how to play without all the trappings of fancy toys. It made me remember how we used to be able to play with a ball for hours....making up games and working to improve our skill.
Eventually Lynda and I did locate a place for dinner and it must have been really good cuz I am still full and it is almost 10 pm! Each of our plates had 6 shrimp on it and each of those shrimp was the size of a small lobster tail! In addition to a wonderful meal we also met a man who was having dinner there and who spoke a little english. He's also spent his entire life here in Campeche so is really familiar with the region. He was able to give us the name of a possible accommodation in Merida (our next stop) as well as the name of a tiny little town that is near Chichen Itza where we might be able to get a room for a night rather than backtracking to Merida. He also told us that there is a road that goes from Chichen Itza to Playa del Carmen so we won't have to go over the top of the peninsula through Cancun en route to Tulum and Playa del Carmen and that stretch of road. We'll be able to cut across the middle and come up from the bottom so we end up in Cancun as our final destination without having to backtrack at all as Cancun is where we catch our flight home on April 1st (and no it's not an April Fools joke!). Wahoo!
Part of our dinner conversation was also worth sharing as it really was quite funny. Lynda commented on the fact "that our shoes (Keens) must look really funny to folks here." When I questioned why she said..."think about it"..."from all the shoe stores we've seen have you seen anything that remotely resembles this?!" She is absolutely right! There are sooo many shoe stores here and they are filled beyond anything you can imagine (unless you've seen them) and they are all fancy shoes! Hardly anything functional at all (other than runners). Women all wear platforms and high heels no matter where they are going or what they're wearing! (photo above gives you just a bit of an idea how they have window after window after window of shoes on display and knowing there is store after store after store of them....it's mind boggling!)
After dinner and en route to a show we had plans to see we came across a set of swinging western style saloon doors that looked like they were straight out of a movie. To top it off there was a sign over the doors that said "saloon". As you might imagine...we had to check it out so in we went....right through those swinging doors looking like a cross between Miss Kitty and Mae West I'm guessing cuz once through those doors we were met with about a dozen sets of eyes all checking us out. Oh ya....all the eyes in the place belonged to men! We decided to pass on staying in the saloon cuz it was pretty smoky and even though it was tempting to stand up to the apparent challenge of breaking some kind of gender code...we thought better of it. It was shortly afterward that it was pointed out to us that the ladies section is through a glass door right next to the swinging doors. LOL! Oops!!
The show we attended tonight was a Light Show performed at the Land Gate into the city. The first 1/2 was all in Spanish so some of that was lost on us but we did get to climb to the top and walk along the wall where we could get a real feel for what it would have been like to have been a resident of the city several hundred years ago as they were staving off the pirates and others who threatened their city. From that vantage we also had a magnificent view of the lights of the city. There are several cathedrals and each of them is well lit so the vantage from the Land Gate was beautiful. The second half of the show was an outdoor film that had english subtitles (just for us I'm sure!) and that described the history of Campeche right from the original Mayan people who found "the bay where the sea doesn't make waves". It was really interesting and seeing it projected onto the wall of the fort made it that much more interesting. At the same time as the film was going on, the staff were enacting parts of the story from the top of the wall where we had stood looking out over the city a few moments before.
It's been another fantastic day in Campeche and tomorrow will be more of the same I'm sure.
Till then....
L & L
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