Farewell to Merida... for now. With coffee from an Oxxo , cookie from yesterday and breakfast bar from our travel bag, we were on our way by 7:00am. It was 86’ at 9:30 when it was my turn to drive.
We are reading Pete Buttigieg’s book “Shortest way home.” As a Harvard grad and a Rhodes scholar, he can string a sentence together. We find that we are at times chuckling at his humor and at times pondering some of the ideas and ideals he presents.
We stopped for lunch at El Camaron Pirata in Ciudad Del Carmen. What a great find! Our lunch was yummy. We had a muse of a shrimp soup then Justin had a shrimp pasta and I had just plain ol’ fried shrimp.
I’d read a month ago that the Zacatal bridge was closed. Southwest of Ciudad del Carmen, in the state of Campeche, this bridge connects the Atasta peninsula and the Isla del Carmen. The longest bridge in the state (perhaps in Mexico), this is the route over which all goods coming into the state of the Yucatan proceed. (Ship freight comes in through Progresso.) With the bridge closure our travel would be impacted so I’d been entertaining route options but since I couldn’t find anything current on line, we asked the traffic guard. He let us know that we were good to go and that the bridge was closed only to trucks. Thank goodness — even though it was it was rather eerie as we were driving with so little traffic.
Somewhere in our journey we saw watermelon and stopped to buy it. Since we’d had such a great, and late, lunch, we though the watermelon would make a great dinner.
We spent the night in Cardenas. I’d made our hotel reservation on-line but when we arrived to actually see the hotel, there was no secure parking. We weren’t really willing to leave the car parked on the street without emptying out the entire car so we asked for our money back and continued looking for lodging. We found ourselves at the equivalent of what, in Japan, we called “love hotels.” In a land where discretion and privacy are revered, customers quickly pull into open garages, the doors close so that no one can see your car or license plates and all payment is conducted electronically by you in the privacy of your room. Customers exit their car into their private, often themed room, after the garage door closed and never see anyone or interact with another individual at all.
I am not sure what they call them in Mexico or how they are seen by locals, but Justin and I were like fish out of water by Japanese standards. We got out of our car outside near the entrance, we roamed around looking inside the garages, we pulled on a door to find it locked. Finally a voice came over the intercom and we stumbled through our inquiry to see if a room (yes for the entire night not just a couple of hours) was available. Yes, the voice said and then the buzzer rang so we could enter through the door. After talking and paying through a mirrored window with a tiny slot to slide payment, I guess I asked one too many questions since a lady then came outside from the office to show us where to park and then how to get into our room. Thankfully, the entry was the only challenge. The room was fine — clean and tidy. The bed was fine and our car safely locked inside a garage inside a huge underground parking lot. I’m quite sure they are still shaking their heads thinking about those silly Americans.
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