(Post 227 of 263)
I somehow managed to wake up at 6:30 without an alarm on Tuesday. First up was breakfast. Most restaurants open at 8AM or later in Campeche, so I asked the front desk if they knew of one open earlier than that as I didn’t want to only eat peanut butter sandwiches all day! Turns out there is a restaurant called La Parroquia near the cathedral that is open 24/7!
Early morning in Campeche
I had to deal with a mini crisis at home while breakfast was going on, so no pics, but let me just say my breakfast wasn’t really anything to remember. I had panuchos, typically a favourite breakfast of mine, but these were really greasy and bony! Not great at all. I did appreciate that I was offered coffee the second I sat down, that the coffee cup was magically refilled at one point, and that the coffee was good!
I was picked up at my hotel at 8:00 on the dot. It was just myself and one other guy, so we went in a regular car. It was very luxurious to be on a semi-private tour! The plan for the day was to hit up three pyramid complexes, Edzná, Hochob, and Dziblnocac. I’m not going to get into a lot of details in this post. If you’re interested to learn more, the Mayan Ruins Website will do a much better and more thorough job of it than I could. I downloaded their page about each site (links above!) to my phone so I could consult it on site, a rather genius movie, as my housesitter said!
Map of the day
Amazing. The longer I live in Yucatan, the more I cannot believe my colonizer, white-washed, revisionist history education that claimed that such things don’t exist on this continent. Construction of Edzná began in 200BC!!!
There were lots of chubby iguanas around the site. This handsome fellow was happy to pose for pictures. I saw tourists with big cameras photographing insects, so I told them about this guy and they were so happy to find one that stood still long enough for them to get pictures. I’m so glad I told them about him!
This handsome fellow was guarding the entrance to the site where you buy your tickets.
I was taking the photo above when I felt a little nip at the back of my calves like the kisses Bonita used to give me! He was rewarded with an ear scratch!
We were at Edzná about an hour and a half, the perfect amount of time.
Our next stop was much shorter, but also much smaller. I never felt rushed all day.
This was quite the climb up as the risers are high.
:-O My first impression was that I was about to enter the mouth of the monster/god, seeing eyes and a mouth, and, lo and behold, that is exactly correct and the intended effect!
Hochob is when the other guest and I finally broke the ice and started enjoying our day together! It helped that he hadn’t thought to bring a lunch and I’d packed enough peanut butter sandwiches to share!
It was then time to go to our final stop. Yes, I can write Dzibilnocac without looking it up since we have Dzibilchaltun north of Mérida that has gotten me used to spelling the first part!
The new camera makes for stunning pictures, no? I cannot believe I have an entire phone period of ownership where I essentially have no travel pictures. For y’all, I pretty much jumped from my 6 (which was already a huge improvement over the 5C that I went to Europe with) to the 14 Pro Max, skipping the middling camera of my XR.
One of my favourite things about Tuesday was being out in nature. I don’t get enough of that in Mérida.
We had a 2.5-hour journey back to Campeche and had been in the sun all day. I joked that I could go for a cold beer. I was equal parts horrified, amused, and grateful when my guide asked a villager where we could get beer and then we detoured to get it! The other guest paid for my beer and it wasn’t until much later that I realised it was the thank you for the sandwiches! Beer tastes exceptionally good when being chauffeured in a fancy car after a long day in the hot sun!
We got in around 4PM. I showered, changed, and went out in search of dinner!
I ended up at Bastion off the main square, which was mostly a mistake.
Things started off very promising with this spicy coleslaw and totopos…
And crostini with garlic sauce.
Dinner looked great — vegetables are a nice change from no vegetables in Mérida, and the xcatic pepper sauce looked so pretty. But the shrimp were overcooked and over salted. And then it wasn’t until after I left that I realised I’d gotten scammed on the tip — they included it in the bill and I didn’t clue in when I wasn’t asked if I wanted to add one since I was paying with my credit card and I left a cash tip as well. Oh, well, it’s not a real trip unless you’ve been scammed at least once, right?
I was super amused, though, that as he brought my dinner, the server said, “You look like someone who wants tortillas with her dinner. I’ll be right back.” Maybe because I tore through all those botanas? LOL!!!
Xcactic peppers are not spicy, just tasty. There’s a restaurant in Mérida that does xcactic pepper sauce chilaquiles that is absolutely divine.
Plaza Principal was looking mighty purty.
No picture, but I remember that after dinner I headed back to El Michoacano for the second time since my arrival to get an ice cream. This time, it wasn’t very busy and the server had time to tell me what all the flavours were when the first time, I just went with the obvious choice, cookies and cream. This time, I was delighted to learn that they had pistachio, so I went with that. Do not confuse this ice cream parlour with La Michoacana, the national non-chain of ice cream that while not franchises per se all have basically identical ice cream, kind of marshmallowy and a bit watery, with some flavours being better than others, all in all offering a middling ice cream cone. EL MichoanO was not that. This was quality, creamy ice cream with premium ingredients.
The cathedral sure looked pretty at night!
Tuesday was another early night. I did try to see the pirate show, but would have had to wait until 9PM to even know if it was on and I was ready to call it a night around 7! I went back to my hotel room and did the Sunday post on my iPad then decided I was not doing any more posts on my iPad! Handling the pictures is too finicking.
What an amazing day! I feel immensely privileged to now call this part of the world home.