Sistas in Mexico Part V - Dressing up for Dinner

Getting back to the travels of Joanne and me in Mexico - we woke up in Celestun and I, being the nice sister that I am, went and bought coffee for us and brought it back to the room. It was at that point we knew we didn't want to leave Celestun on this Saturday. So we decided to stay another night. When I told the innkeeper of our plans, she said she had no vacancy for Saturday night. I was quite surprised but it is a beautiful, quaint seaside village and I blamed nobody for wanting to stay there. We were traveling light enough. A move to another hotelito would be quite painless. Once we got dressed, we walked along the street and the beach to check out a few places down the way. We stopped and inquired at one place, but it was going to be 600 pesos and I replied we would look around. I actually thought they would call us back and strike a deal, but they didn't and my pride got in the way and I wouldn't go back and say we would take it. So we walked to Gutierrez's, which is really where I would recommend going in the first place, and they had one room left for $550. Deal!

The Balcony outside our second floor room

  It was on the second floor and big, with two double beds. They have a nice second-floor mirador and a killer breakfast with pressed coffee to die for. We ate breakfast here, put on our swimsuits and walked to the beach. We walked and shelled, then pulled lounge chairs beachfront for a few hours of soaking up sun and watching the boats and people around us. 
There were a few more times of demonstrating the retching and motion sickness. 
We ended up having appetizers and drinks at another little palapa bar/restaurant down the beach. The one we had gone to yesterday was actually full of people with no more beach-side chairs available. 
Celestun is definitely a place to come to if you want to be beachside and relaxed. It you want to dress up and go out to dinner, well, I'm about to tell you - 

Out on the town square in her nightgown

We decided to go into town and see what was happening around the park and see what kind of light eats we could drum up. What to wear? I had on the one clean set of clothes I had brought and Joanne decided to wear her nightgown with a pareo slung over her shoulder. It looked quite cute!

There was a midway/carnival of such set up along one side of the park. The downtown was hopping with motorcycles, families, kids and vendors. I should say families on motorcycles because that's how they travel - Mom, Dad and one, two or three kids on the motorcycle. We both enjoyed sitting and people-watching while we decided what to eat. Joanne wanted a marquesita so we ordered and then the guy said he would be back en un momento. We saw when he came back that he needed the cheese - edam cheese goes into the middle of the marquesitas...along with..you guessed it...cajeta (or Nutella or whatever you want that the vendor has). He made it so perfect with the thin, waffle cone crust rolled up nicely around gooey filling oozing out faster than she could eat it. 

Watching moms and dads enjoy the time with their children really touched our hearts. We were equally touched by the small boy that cleaned the tables when I ordered tacos from the lady at one of the food stalls beside the park. She and I had the sweetest conversation which was born out of necessity with me speaking Spanish and she trying to understand my Spanish and letting me know she knew no English. But, I didn't expect her to. After our exchange, paying, eating and enjoying, we embraced prior to moving on. The embrace really meant we don't have to understand each other's language, we both understand smiles, mutual respect, kindness and enjoyment she saw me receiving from eating the food she  prepared. Those are the moments that touch your heart. 

I had to order a marquesita now. We ended the night sitting on a park bench just watching the goings on and getting great enjoyment from the nothingness of it all. My sister in her nightgown and me in my one set of clean clothes. I'll say it again - Celestun is one of my favorite places in the world and it had now touched Joanne in the same way. She fell in love with Celestun too. 

We spent an unhurried Sunday morning eating breakfast at Gutierrez's and then boarded our bus back to Merida. It was nice because our bus came into Merida from Hunucma, a different route into town, so we got to see new scenery. Rather than ride the bus all the way to the Noreste station we got off as close to downtown as we could get and went and watched the performers in the Plaza Grande, walked around browsing at the stalls set up and ate cheap eats. We are still miffed by the popularity of the elotes served in cups. It's corn cooked and spooned into a cup where it is mixed with mayonnaise and whatever spicey condiments you want to add, then eaten with a spoon. It's very popular.

Internet image

We finished off the day with ice creams and sat and watched people come by as we sat outside along the plaza grande. We walked home in the late afternoon to plan our next adventure!