Campeche

Without consulting the group as to what kind of lunch we wanted, Coco stopped at a huge roadside steakhouse.  There was no light alternative, such as a sandwich, and little for vegetarians, plus it took over 1 hour for everyone to eat.  

It wasn't a particularly interesting journey and also I've got into the habit now of plugging my headphones in and listening to music to cut out the constant chatter from one or two of the group, so I'm less snap happy out of the window.  That said, here are a couple of window snaps as we passed through small towns.  

Wherever you go in the world there's always a beaten up old VW Beetle.

This looked like a father and son snack selling enterprise.

Son seemed to be receiving messages from the packets of snacks and given his size I think they must have been saying "eat me, eat me".  (As I'm using this image for comedic effect and given that my blog is freely accessible I think it's only fair to disguise the lad's identity.).  Actually what concerns me more is the contents of his 3 bottles of pop!

We drove alongside the sea for a good while and the area looked fascinating, there were lots of pretty fishing boats, fishermen, pelicans and all sorts of stuff to see and I was quite excited at the prospect of staying there.  Unfortunately we were still a long way from our overnight in Campeche Old Town but that also sounded lovely - a Spanish‐colonial harbour city, complete with cobbled streets, pastel‐painted mansions, perfectly restored baroque façades and 16th century rampart walls around its atmospheric old town; the UNESCO listed heart of Campeche is almost too good to be true.  There are bird's eye views from atop the San Francisco bas on and outside the walls, the 5km malecón path hems the Gulf seafront, dotted with shops and eateries.  

Because of the late start and the long lunch we arrived at the city wall just as it was getting dark and our "city tour" consisted of walking from one of the old city gates down the main street with its beautiful brightly painted old buildings.

A gruesome reminder of how pirates were once treated.

  

At one point Coco marched us all through a chocolate café/shop to show us its pretty garden (it was almost dark by now!) and then marched us straight back out again - the staff just stood there, mouths open in amazement.  

Like San Cristobál a couple of the streets were pedestrianised at night and there was quite a party atmosphere to the place, although not many people around. 

Nosing in though someone's window, Christmas decorations already up.

He didn't even stop at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception 

So I snuck in and took a quick snap, it looks like hand sanitizer has now taken over from Holy Water.

Then he took us to the wrong hotel; the Plaza Hotel whereas we were actually booked into the sister hotel Plaza Colonia, 250 yards away across a busy road junction.  Instead of simply moving the bus, Arturo marched us all up there on foot to check-in and then we all had to troop back and retrieve our suitcases ourselves.   Arturo then announced that we would leave at 0800 the following day, however having missed out on seeing Campeche in the light, most of the group wanted a chance to see it for themselves and therefore we requested a later start (0900) to which Arturo readily agreed.

We headed out to look for a bottle of wine and something to eat, but failed miserably on the first count.  Various eateries advertised wine at reasonable prices but then didn't have them in stock and seemed surprised that we didn't want to pay £50 a bottle.  One place did have a reasonably priced wine but the waitress couldn't tell me if it was sweet or dry; so she used her initiative and gave me a sample to taste - it was utterly revolting.

We ended up in a sort of sports bar which again didn't stock wine and or half the beers advertised, but with the help of a patient waitress we found something that tasted reasonable and shared a very nice pizza between us.

 I loved the mini police cars.

We then went back to the sister hotel and decided that dinner had been cheap so we'd splash out on a bottle of their very expensive Chilean Sauvignon Blanc and sit on their rather pleasant terrace.

Our hotel (you can't call it an annex as it was about 250 yards away over a busy road junction) was weird; the rooms were quite large but the layout of the whole building made me think it had recently been converted from offices.   Soon after we turned our lights out a loud noise started which sounded like a tank filling.  We waited a while thinking it might have been from a shower or toilet and would stop soon, but it didn't.  Eventually I went down to reception and had a chat, they knew all about the problem and assured me it would stop at around 0200 - not good enough.  They offered to change our room but when I went back to tell Ian sure enough it had stopped, so we turned in only for it to start up again.   We ended up pushing the massive beds to the other side of the room and eventually got some sleep.

We were up and out at 0700 to look around the town before breakfast.  The view from our window.

Our Lady again.

As in previous Spanish colonial towns we visited there were some wonderful colonnades.

The police were also up and about early - so cute!

And I was invited to sit in it and have my picture taken.

Looking towards another city gate with the sea in the distance.

My new friend.

The malecón was very quiet and nothing of particular interest to look at.

It is apparently a Maya Angel on top of the column.

We walked back into the old town through the same gate - there are 4 gates in all; 3 opening to land and this one to the sea.

I think he's a fisherman.

The main square with the cathedral peaking over the trees.

We had a later than normal breakfast which was served at the other hotel and then met up for our 0900 start.  Campeche was a lovely place and I'm sure with more time we would have found lots of interesting things to see.