After finding another company and booking for the next day, we went back to Pelicanos, the restaurant with the Squash Blossom Fajitas that had been closed the day before. This time they were open. A very pleasant woman came out and gave us menus, and proceeded to tell us which items were not available that day . . . including the Squash Blossom Fajitas! The Doctor was very disappointed. She explained that they grew many of their own ingredients in their garden behind the restaurant, but some heavy rains had washed away all the Squash Blossoms. She recommended some of the other fajitas, including one and with potato's and roasted chile poblanos. That sounded good, but the other one was even more intriguing. It was a fajita made with something called Huitlacoche, and she described it as the mushroom or fungus that grows on corn. She said it was black, and though a black fungus fajita didn't sound very appetizing, she assured us it was very good. Both the Doctor and I are always up for trying knew things as long as they are vegetarian, and corn fungus meets that criteria, so we ordered that, and the one with the potatoes and chile poblanos. As bad as it sounded the Huitlachoche was actually delicious, and the other fajita was good as well.
The woman's name was Alejandra, and she was very friendly. When we first arrived, she had been sitting at another table in front of the restaurant with her two young daughters, and she kept returning to her meal between waiting on customers. I am pretty sure the man doing the cooking was her husband. It was a nice little family business. She asked us where we were from, and when we told her she was quite surprised. She said not many Americans come to Holbox, mostly Europeans. As it turned out a couple came and sat at the next table who were from Holland; amazingly Alejandra picked right up on their accent and knew where they were from without having to ask! She asked about our trip and where we were headed next. We told her Chichen Itza. In planning his Whale Shark dive for the next day, The Doctor had been a little concerned about how long it would take us to get to Chichen Itza, as he wouldn't be getting back until 2:00 or so. I asked Alejandro how far it was and she said around two hours, but then admitted that was how long it took HER, she wasn't sure what kind of drivers we were.
After we had placed our order she came back to our table and asked if she could join us. She sat down next to me, and on an index card drew out a map for us on how to get to Chichen Itza. She included on it a few things of interest near Chichen Itza that we should try to see if we had the time, including a couple of cenotes, which are limestone sinkholes filled with water and are very popular for swimming, snorkeling and scuba diving. I had read about these in my guidebook, and was quite interested in them. She spent a lot of time at our table giving us information, and I was quite amazed at how friendly she was, and we were both very appreciative of her little map and directions, especially considering some of the trouble we had had finding places already.
After we ate, we returned to Tribu to pick up our bags and collect the fifty pesos I had put down for the room key. When I had made reservations, Tribu only had a private room available for one night, so we would be staying at another hostel for our second night at Holbox. Roni, the girl who had checked us in the day before, had a little display of wrist bands that she makes and was selling to support her own travels. In Peru I had bought two wrist bands for the Doctor and myself, and so I decided I would buy a couple of Roni's to continue the tradition. When she saw I was buying them she said "Really?!" She seemed surprised and quite pleased, and thanked me for helping her travel.
We then had to walk a good distance to the next hostel, which was called Hostel & Cabanas Ida y Vuelta Camping. Quite a mouthful. I had told the Doctor I wanted to hire one of the golf cart taxis to take us there, but we didn't run into any, so I had to drag my "steamer trunk" through the sandy streets of Holbox again, dodging the numerous mud puddles along the way. It was a bit of a hike, but we made it.
The hostel was a lovely little village of thatched roof bungalows, mostly dorm style rooms, and a couple of small pup tents that could also be rented. There was a small restaurant, and a public kitchen, and four hammocks set up in the middle of the common area. Our bungalow was a private one, and quite lovely, though I didn't care for the fact that there was no door on the bathroom, and the toilet was in plain view of the bed. The public bathrooms were right across from our bungalow, and even those had doors on the toilet stalls, so I am not sure why ours had no door. The bed was draped with a mosquito net, and an overhead fan helped cool the room down a little.
After we got settled in we walked down to the beach which was not too far from the hostel. We spent awhile there, though I was beginning to realize I had developed a pretty bad sun burn on my shoulders and upper back while out on the boat, so I didn't want to stay too long. On our way to the beach we had noticed all these little holes in the ground and on the way back we discovered they were crab holes. There were all these tiny little crabs on the ground, and they would dart down into their holes when they felt threatened. It was kind of hard to see them, and you only really noticed them when they scurried away, and they moved so quickly it was hard to get a look at them. Back at our bungalow, I saw one right outside the door, without a hole anywhere in site. I began taunting it, saying things like "Where's your hole now little crab? No place to hide now, is there?" The Doctor told me to get inside before the thing swallowed me whole . . .
We decided we would have dinner at the other restaurant owned by Alejandro and her husband, a place called La Guaya located right behind Los Pelicanos. She had explained to us that Los Pelicanos was opened during the day and served mainly "easy" food, while La Guaya was opened at night with a more evolved menu that included homemade pasta. We walked down a road along the beach that ran into the center of town. Along this road where some nicer, more upscale hotels and resorts than we had seen elsewhere on the island, and more touristy types of shops and businesses. We were taken aback a little when we saw one of those obnoxious party buses coming down the sand road. It was a double decker, playing music and lit up like a Christmas tree. It was the last thing we expected to see on Holbox, considering there were almost no other automobiles on the island.
And lo and behold, I even found a shop that sold sunglasses, so I bought my second pair in three days since arriving in Mexico.
La Guaya was a very nice restaurant set right outside in a small plaza area behind the closest thing to a shopping mall on the island. The kitchen was enclosed, but the seating area was all out in the open, though there was a roof overhead. Dogs would come wandering through now and then, including one big black dog who kept going back and forth in quite a hurry and obviously up to something very important.
The food was good. I got a vegetable fettuccini dish with freshly made pasta and topped with provolone, and The Doctor got raviolis. Toward the end of our meal a couple of performers came along and entertained the diners. One played a small guitar while the other rolled a glass ball up and down his arms and across his back with a great deal of skill.
Alejandra also showed up with her two little daughters and she seemed quite happy to see us again. At lunch while she was drawing out our map, she had mentioned the military check point we had passed through the day before. I asked her now what that was all about, and she said they were checking for guns and drugs. I told her they had just waved us through so we must have looked OK, and she laughed.
After dinner we checked out the "mall". It consisted of two floors of shops, mostly catering to tourists, nothing like a Macy's or Old Navy store to be found at all. But we were both surprised when we came around a corner to find a little movie theatre, which was another thing we would not have expected to find on Holbox.
We walked around the center of town for awhile. It really seemed to come alive at night, and had almost a carnival atmosphere too it. In fact the large park was set up with vendors and midway type games, and several different "bouncy houses" for the kids. Across from the park was a little art gallery called Centre Cultural Comunitario Holbox that we went into. Outside where some beautiful paintings of Whale Sharks, and we both liked many of the paintings inside as well. There were a couple of beach scenes with seagulls, very large paintings, that The Doctor would have loved to have bought for his office. They were very reasonably priced considering the quality of the work, but getting them back to the states was what posed a bit of a problem. The proprietor, a young man named Rigel, greeted us and told us he was the artist of all the artwork. After we had looked around for a bit he talked with us some. He had just taken over the gallery from a friend, and was hoping to attract other local artists to display their work there as well. In the park across the street was a huge hatch shell type stage, and he told us he was in talks with the local authorities to paint a large mural on it. That is something I would really like to see when it is completed.
After walking around a little more we headed back to our hostel. The road along the beach was very dark, at least when there wasn't a golf cart headed toward us with its lights on. The night sky was filled with stars, and we could see the big dipper quite clearly. It was all very lovely.
Monday morning The Doctor headed out early for his second Whale Shark Swim. I stayed back at the hostel. The night before The Doctor had taken me into the public bathroom across from our bungalow and showed me one of the showers which had a large Conch shell for a shower head. He had showered there that morning, and I did as well when I got up. The shell had holes drilled in it so the water came down pretty much like a regular shower, but not everyone can say they have showered under a Conch shell.
I spent most of the day out in one of the hammocks with my laptop. There were a couple ladies in the other hammocks, one reading a book that apparently was quite awful, which her friend jokingly referred to as "Wuthering Heights". The second lady was playing a game of Scrabble on her friends Kindle. We could hear loud claps of thunder in the distance, and eventually we did get a very light rain, but not enough to drive us inside. A very little black cat came along and was quite friendly. He let me pet him, and then he climbed up on my back pack and sniffed around, and then wandered off.
A bit later a young, rather cute, shirtless Mexican guy came along. He had long hair that was tied up in a sort of bun. When he saw me he gave me a big smile and started talking in Spanish. One of the women said something back to him, so I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or her, but he kept looking at me and smiling. I kind of thought he was flirting, but couldn't be sure.
The Doctor finally returned around 2:30. When I went to get up off my hammock I discovered the little black cat was under my hammock sleeping on my sandals. He must have been there the whole time. Then I wondered if maybe it was the cat and not me the young guy had been looking and smiling at. I hated to disturb the poor thing, but I had to gently pull my sandals out from under him.
The Doctor had had another great day swimming with the Whale Sharks, and had even snuck another touch when no one was looking. In addition they had stopped twice to swim with the Devil Rays. That sounded amazing. There was a whole swarm of them swimming all around him and when one would swim off he'd turn around and another would be coming up behind him. I think I would have done better swimming with the Rays and having them all around me, than the Whale Sharks that you pretty much had to chase after.
The Doctor wanted to catch the 3:00 Water Taxi, but we only had about 20 minutes to get there. It was a bit of walk, and with my "steamer trunk" I doubted we would make it. But we set out in the hope that we might run into a taxi cart, and sure enough we did. It was driven by a man who had his little daughter with him. We boarded and he took us to the pier without even asking where we were headed, I guess it was fairly obvious. At the pier we encountered a bit of a language barrier when it came to the fare . He finally had to take money out of his own pocket to show us what I needed to give him. It was only about 30 Pesos, (around $2.50), and I gave him a ten Peso tip.
We made the water taxi on time and got to Chiquila in about 20 minutes or so.
I had wondered if our car would still be there, of if Darren (the guy who had helped us park and find the water taxi) would have called his chop shop friends as soon as we were out of sight. But it was still there, safe and sound. Darren had told us we would be charged per night, which would have been two nights, but the woman we paid told us it was per day which which was three days. It still only came to a total of only $15,00.
The Doctor had hooked his GPS up to my laptop the night before and tried downloading some program from the Garmin web site. When we got into the car with it, it seemed to be working a little better, and we hoped that with that, the GPS on my phone, and Alejandra's little map we would make it to Chichen Itza without getting terribly lost.
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