February 1, 2023
Day 33: Cancun
Voodoo Time
The family or staff or whatever at the Airport Sleepy Time B&B were up before dawn, talking loudly in the office next door to our room. It's hard to figure out quite who the four of them are. There is Jesus, who first "greeted" us, however sullenly, at the gate when we arrived. Then there is the very dark man, the one who shouted into his phone outside our door for much of the evening, and his very slim wife, with orange hair. Finally there is a clearly Mexican lady. I think she just works here. But she speaks her Spanish in rapid fire, and can not be slowed down.
At 7, the appointed breakfast hour, I went into the office/kitchen to see what was going on. Jesus was there, but he ignored me. And there was the orange haired lady, who just stared at me. I was determined to still have this be a normal experience, though I had not slept well due to the lights dimming and brightening continually through the night. "My name is Estive, what's yours?" (Mi nombre es estive, y tu? - I have learned that much anyway) I said to the orange lady. And so I learned that she is Rosa. Then I addressed Jesus, but he didn't look up from what he was doing. Rosa gave him a verbal poke. Then with my Google Translate I asked why the lights keep going up and down. The reply: "It is the meter of the commission light that is why it is like this is how it is burned, that is why it goes up and down." In Spanish, I am sure this is what he actually said to Google Translate, but to be fair the voice recognition could be confusing matters. I take this to mean it's the power company's fault. I'm glad that so far our computers, bike charger, etc. are not fried. They are struggling enough already, because our room has only one plug, and that is so worn that things do not want to stay plugged in.
About 30 minutes later, breakfast arrived. It looked like this:
This may again be too much whining to start the day, but we also checked our credit card and found that Booking.com had taken payment for this place two days ago, and what's more it took it in $US. Me and Google Translate sought out Jesus, who had taken cash pesos from us yesterday. Shown the bank's entry on my phone, he immediately produced and handed over our pesos. He did this so quickly, he must have known. But at least he did it. Good spotting to Dodie on this one!
We spent some time in the morning packing up our stuff and disassembling the bikes a bit. But finally we new we would have to make a jailbreak, to get water, and some additional food. It turned out that our compound is locked from the inside as well as outside, so we had to scare up someone to help with our escape. It turned out to be the Mexican lady, who I am a bit leery of too, ever since she yanked the microwave plug from the wall after catching me trying to heat a cup of water.
Our goal was the neighbourhood near Jorge's place, which in fact is the first source of restaurants and supplies anywhere around the airport. It's 3 1/2 km one way from where we are. With the bikes partially packed, we decided to walk it. Our hats were also packed, and we had no water, so it ws a bit foolhardy to undertake in the hot sun. We also made the now common for us error of setting out on 307, since it looked the most direct route.
Whether on foot or on bike, 307 is not a pleasant choice. It is ripped up, and lacks shade or amenities, unless perhaps you want to buy a truck tire.
We trudged along, and did reach the neighbourhood. Our first move was to buy juice from the fresh juice lady. This can restore strength and optimism for an hour at least. We used that strength to go find a shady bench in the park. Now we were enjoying ourselves again!
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Rested now from the shady bench, we set off for the panaderia, ablock away. We passed a grocery store, today featuring mamey (not watermelon as seemingly on the sign), which is the fruit of the large trees we had earlier noticed, and named sapodilla. Mamey and sapodilla are essentially the same fruit.
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.The grocery also had many types of dried chillies, allowing the classic Mexican photo:
And there were sour oranges. The sour oranges are needed for making a marinade for poc chuc. I was hoping to find this in a bottle to take home, but no luck. The stock boy I asked about it could only advise to buy the oranges, squeeze the juice, and get on with it!
At the bakery we found the unusually good selection that we knew we would . When we spent a week in this neighbourhood last year, I got to know this bakery well. None of the products are European quality or style, but some are quite acceptable, especially the cakes. An unexpected bonus was running into the baker at the door, and exchanging some pleasant words with him. His optimism and smiles were a welcome change from the voodoo prison we had temporarily escaped.
This was amplified by the three sales helpers. Seeing my camera, they insisted on posing for a shot. I showed them the result, and one copied the image with her phone camera.
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Our final act of resupply was to stop by one of two chicken places. One is using charcoal and a grill, but this time we went for the thing that looks for all the world like it is in France - even down to the potatoes on the bottom.
The French resemblance only went so far, of course. The package we brought home had three really fiery green chillies, some equally fiery frijitos sauce, a pile of tacos in the form of cigar like rolled meat filled fried tortillas, two bags of flavoured rice, and a stack of fresh tortillas. It was a lot of stuff for 129 pesos.
It was a long trudge home in the heat, but the outing - our last for this trip - had been worth it.
Today's ride: 7 km (4 miles)
Total: 1,508 km (936 miles)
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