Hot Sunday in Campeche

Sunday, Mar. 27, 2011--Campeche

My bed has a new, but not high quality, mattress. I could tell during the night. Normally I don't have problems with sleeping on such beds. I guess I've been spoiled by the new mattress I bought myself in January.

The air conditioner was running constantly last night. The thermostat is in a hallway that was quite dark in the evening. I looked to try to adjust it, but it appeared that the control was broken. Therefore, I covered up to my head. And I turned the a/c off when I got up once during the night and back on when I got up another time later. In better light this morning, however, I noticed that there was a clear plastic slide for adjusting the temperature. Apparently, the bellboy slid it to its coldest setting when he brought me to the room. I set it at an acceptable temperature, and it has been cycling on and off all day. I should sleep much better tonight.

My sleep was also hampered by the sheets being tucked in too far. Since it is a king size bed, I just ended up sleeping in it at an angle so that I could get my whole body under the covers.

When I left the hotel this morning at 9:45, there were many people walking from the waterfront. When I finally saw a couple of people with numbers attached to their tops I realized they had just finished some kind of race. This city seems to celebrate. Besides this race and the bread festival I mentioned last night, they also participated in the worldwide A Night without Lights celebration by turning off the lights on the city walls for an hour last night starting at 20:30.

This has been my first time to be on the Gulf of Mexico within Mexico. I lived right on it in the US, but I have never been to it south of the border. And because of the location of Campeche it is so different with the sun rising over the city and setting over the water. The waterfront here reminds me of Corpus Christi, however. There is a seawall along it with a promenade. Beside the promenade is a wide street following the waterfront. It's clean, and there are palm trees. But there is no real shade, and it gets quite hot early in the day.

I hoped to find a place for a good Mexican restaurant, but I couldn't Sunday is always a lazy day in Mexico. The market was open, however, and I wandered through the food stalls there until I found a place serving cochinita pibil tortas--sandwiches filled with roasted pork and marinated onions. UMMMM! It was great.

Near my hotel is a Museum of the Desert which I visited. It is small and has mainly fossils of fish, reptiles, etc. Then I headed back to the room because of the heat. It was getting HOT fast!

For part of the afternoon, I researched hotels in my next two stops. I sent some e-mails for information. I have a better idea of where to stay now. My head was aching by the end of the search, however.

Going back out around 16:30, I explored some neighborhoods to the north and northeast of the historic center. Most tourists never go there. They are typical Mexican neighborhoods with a mixture of plain, simple homes and a few that are large and fancy. Many have shards of glass along the tops of the walls to discourage burglaries. Some even had live chickens in the enclosed yard. People were beginning to come out of their houses because the temperature was going down. I passed one family sitting on the front sidewalk playing bingo. A block later, I passed a group of 4 guys sitting outside. One of them said something to me that I didn't understand, so I just responded with, "Hola!" As I continued walking, one of them asked in a surprised way, "Do you speak English?" I responded, "Si," and just kept on walking. As I said, they aren't used to having tourists in their neighborhood.

Coming back toward the center of town, I stopped at the large supermarket where I had been last night and bought another diet soda and some spicy peanuts to keep in my room for snacking. The sun was getting slow, so I rushed to get them to my hotel and to try to make it to the waterfront to see the setting sun. Unfortunately, it was already gone. But the sky was a beautiful pink, orange and blue, and there were people there who had come to enjoy the cool breeze and the sunset.

I made my way to the main plaza in town where they were setting up for a band concert. My timing was great. I took a seat, and the concert began about 10 minutes later. It reminded me of the Sunday evening concerts by the waterfront in Corpus Christi. Whole families were there to enjoy the music. The band was not great--just a group of local musicians who enjoy performing. The music was mostly Spanish. It lasted about 45 minutes and was pleasant.

From there, I headed to the Bread Festival. I bought two treats. One was four small dough balls which had been fried and then stuck together in a pyramid by a thick coating of caramelized sugar. It was tasty, but messy. Then I bought a rice-coconut pudding topped with cinnamon. It was thick enough to be cut into slices. There was live music on the stage there, too--about 15 musicians playing guitars and bongo-type drums. It wasn't mariachi music, but it sounded a bit like it.

By 20:00, I was tired. I returned to the room. It's been a good day. My only wish is that it could have been a bit more comfortable. It got up to 33 degrees celsius (91 1/2 F) with high humidity. Even after the sun went down, the air was still VERY muggy. But I got some color on my face and arms. Soon I'll be looking just like I'm one of the Mexicans.