Tonight I am staying in the El Castillo (which looks like a castle) another drive in hotel with private garages, though this one just has a curtain for a door. The room is quite plush and very dark. There is not enough light in the room for me to type on my laptop, so here I am in an internet café.
I have come to the conclusion that the hotel with the garages are places for discrete rendezvous. The room I’m in has a huge mirror at the head of the bed, colored lights above the bed, piped in music, and a price list on the wall that includes drink, toiletries and condoms. There is also a wooden rotating shelf in the wall between the room and the garage through which the staff can deliver items without opening the door or seeing in the room.
Generally having my head in the clouds, it usually takes me a while to figure these things out.
I expect to arrive in Xalapa during the early afternoon tomorrow. I will unload my household goods there and return to Merida.
3 Comments
July 24, 2006 at 7:41 am
Unloading your household goods in Xalapa? Have I missed something? Are your going to live in Merida or Xalapa?
July 24, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Hey Billie,
Nice to hear from you.
I am at the moment in my apartment in Merida, to which I have just returned a couple hours ago. However, I have rented a dump of an apartment in Xalapa in which I deposited my stuff I had in storage and to which I plan to move in the next couple of weeks.
Merida is a great city and the folks whom I have met here and those with whom I trade have been very good to me. But the heat and lack of rain here is too much for me. As I sit here in my shorts and nothing else I’m sweating. I can walk up and down the hills in Xalapa for hours and not break a sweat.
So I have decided to try Xalapa. I’ve spent 5 days there, coming and going to Elma, and find it very nice. It is up in the hills so it’s not so hot and it gets lots of rain to keep things green. I think gardening will be easier there.
July 25, 2006 at 7:05 am
Yes, we have been to Xalapa…just for a few days. Also to Xico, Cuitzilan and a number of towns in that area. I worked on photographing the 16th century churches in Mexico. So as I say, we spent a short time in Veracruz area but mostly working out of Merida, Puebla, and Oaxaca.
Yucatan is HOT. I can remember walking out of one of the churches wet to the skin with sweat. We would get back to our hotel room and lay naked on the bed with the window AC cranked as high as we could get it. And we tried never to go there from March to October.
I’ll be following your adventures in Xalapa.
Billie