No happy dance to start this day. Today was day two of airport and finding our way to Chicago. Our initial flight had been for 15 March but we were not comfortable leaving in the middle of Santos' work so we pushed out until 30 March.
On Wednesday we left Celestun around noon. Our first stop was Plaza de la Tecnologica, but there was no battery available for Justin’s phone. Then we went to Petco for one last ditch effort to try to see if we could get a carrier for Gemma. No luck.
Our next stop was the airport for Covid tests; thankfully we were both negative. We could have waited until the next morning but we needed one thing behind us.
We found a fun little Italian place before we settled in at Hotel Posada Maya. We’d chosen the hotel because it was so close to the airport and because we didn’t need appointments for our Covid tests. It is truly a Mexican hotel but we did have a nice swim. Luis came to pick up our rental car. He said he’d had three different Uber’s cancel on him so he was running quite late.
Our flight on Thursday wasn’t until mid afternoon so we had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast and a second or third cup of coffee. Gemma decided to roll in a patch of poo when Justin let her out for a run. That meant an emergency bath and he got back to grooming her. Thankfully, we had plenty of time.
At the airport, we learned that it was the hottest day of the year and it was too hot for Gemma to fly!!! After all sorts of negotiations and expletives, with booking on a really early flight on Friday with a horribly long layover in Mexico City, we got all of crap and the carrier back in a taxi and this time we headed back to our old friend, Hotel Los Aluxes.
Now you may think we might have had a nice relaxing afternoon. Oh no. In the middle of the airport fiasco we received a text from Peter letting us know that our HSBC debit card had expired and he had no access to our account. Well that bites since we depend on him as our operations manager while we are gone. After stashing our stuff at Hotel Aluxes we looked for a cab to take us to the bank but we ended up walking the 12-15 minutes in the hot, hot, hot. The gods were smiling since Justin was able to get a new card right away, but we hit the wall when we asked them to hold the card so Abraham could pick it up in a couple of days. Their argument of bank policy and our security held, but knowing that the alternative was to leave the card at the desk at the hotel didn’t seem to concern them at all. Abraham to the rescue. He got a car-taxi and came from Celestun to meet us in Merida last night to get the card to take to Peter. I never even would have dreamed to ask him but when he offered, I was quick to say “thank you!”
We had a lovely dinner at Sabina on Parque Santa Ana, about two blocks from our hotel. The chef is from Mexico City and the waitress’ name is Lily. They have some fresh takes on Mayan favorites that make for interesting flavor combinations. We will be sure to go back there in the fall.
We slept fast as we were to catch our taxi at 4:15. We forgot to ask if that was Mexican time or real time. The taxi never showed. The good folks at the desk jumped through hoops to order another. Finally at the airport, through check in and security we learned that our 7:30 am flight had been delayed until 10:55. Yes, I cried. We had checked Gemma through only to Mexico City. Our plan was to get her, check on her, take her for a walk, hold her and just be with her during what would have been merely an 8+ hour layover. Then, according to our plan, we would have checked her in this time to Chicago. With this new delay, it broke up the wait time, but that wait time was still too long. We thought about getting Gemma and visiting with her in Merida but then we’d need to start the whole check in process for her all over again. Yes, we will drive next year.
All this and it still wasn’t yet 11am. I think I remember a few days when I was still in my jammies at 11am. Not today. Was this really all April Fools?
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