Merida 2013, Day 5 - Parque Santiago

Decided to walk less today mostly to try and give my blisters a bit of a chance to heal. So we walked to the English Library, about 6 blocks away. This is a very active place for English speaking ex-pats, has a large book, video and books on Cd collection, runs a garden tour and a studio tour and various other activities. We asked about the bus routes and got the same response as from the guide books and the internet sites - good luck, just get on them and learn the routes that way. We posted a note on the bulletin board there asking if anyone was interested in sharing a car and guide to Ek Balam, an archaeological site that the tours don't seem to go to.
From there we walked down to Parque Santiago which was where we shopped the first day. We sat in the park, me sketching and George reading the Toronto Sun that we got at the airport in Toronto, forever ago.

The bells on top of Templo de Santiago, not as easy to sketch as they look.

 



The Parque in front of the church is full of people relaxing on the benches, children running around and of course the resident flock of pigeons.

We ate in a loncheria at the market, deciding that we had to start getting a bit braver with our stomachs. These are tiny stalls/kitchens with tables and chairs set out in front and a waiter. George had a turkey, ham and cheese sandwich and I had Sopa de Lima (a chicken soup with tortillas in the bottom and limes and pickled onion slices on top). With a bottle of pop our lunch  cost 72 M$ (about $7).

We got some fruit and veg at the market stalls, other groceries at the supermarket and chicken at the butchers behind the church. This is our closest food shopping area and we are getting quite comfortable with it.

Both times we have purchased the bulk of our fruit and veg at this ladies

stall, great avocados and tomatoes. You take the plastic bowl, that you can see in the picture,

fill it with your choices, hand it to her and she tells you the price.

 

After shopping we stopped at a restaurant that we had seen, behind the market, that looked intriguing. We ordered a cervesa, coffee and 2 pan dolce (essentially cookies) for about the same price as our lunch. Loved the atmosphere inside and they have a patio too. Checked out the menu and we will probably be back for dinner sometime.

 

The inside of La Flor de Santiago

 

The outside of La Flor de Santiago

 

 

Walking home. felt so much easier than previous days, because it was less distance and not in the heat of the day. After a swim and short hammock rest (abandoned due to rain) we decided to take our lives in our hands and just take the next bus that passed our place. We said "centro?" to the driver , he said "si", we paid our 6M$ each and were off. He drove quite fast, swooped round corners, laid on the horn at any perceived offence and the ride was a lot of fun as we tried to jot down the route as we went (ie "he turned south on 74, east on 61" etc). He took as downtown, we paid another 6M$ and got off just one block south of our place. We learnt from the guide books that rather than saying aqui (here) you say ba-ha (down) to get off.  Hopefully we have solved how to get home from downtown when we are too bushed to walk. We are feeling quite proud of ourselves.