Car Trip 13

We awoke on Sunday morning desperately needing a cup of coffee. I threw on my clothes from last night, which were piled in the corner by my bed. They were in the corner not because I am a slob but because there was nothing to put them on! After making sure that I had plenty of coins, I headed down to the lobby area to get us some morning java. I am here to tell you, when you need your morning caffeine, even vending machine coffee is manna from heaven. Having survived the morning deluge, commonly called a shower, we headed out for breakfast. But we had an important stop to make first. The front desk!

We simply asked if we could look at a different room and the woman at the desk handed us a key and pointed to another set of stairs, deeper in the lobby. So up we went, another four flight of stairs! This trip was starting to take on a flavor of a lot of climbing. The room was much better. It even had two windows for cross ventilation and a view to the street below. We immediately grabbed our stuff and changed rooms!

We returned to the town square and had a semi decent breakfast at one of the restaurants under the arches. Then we decided to go back to the seawall and maybe do a little shopping. We bought some Veracruzean coffee, which is quite good, for ourselves and to bring back to select people in our lives on the island. Not really being in the mood for shopping, we just strolled aimlessly. We ended up seeing the divers again and threw a few coins for them again. My amazement at their willingness to enter that garbage water was just as strong as it had been yesterday. I had a mission while in Veracruz also. Jaimie and I had had our first taste of Sol Negra here. A dark version of my favorite beer. I really like it and I wanted to find some to buy and take back to the island.

I dragged poor B to every convenience store I could find in the area. They all sold beer. They all sold Sol. None of them sold Sol Negra. I was hugely disappointed but not enough to loose any sleep over it! Speaking of sleep, that is exactly what we did! We went back to our room and settled in for a little siesta. L was due to arrive to join us on the rest of the trip at around 2:30pm.

At the appointed time of 2:30pm, we were waiting patiently in the lobby for L to show up from his flight. A little after 3pm the clerk at the front desk called us to the phone. It was L. He was having flight problems and delays and would be another 3 hours to get there! We didn’t like this news but felt sorry for him. He had just flown from San Jose, Costa Rica to Mexico City and then encountered the problems. It was going to be a long day for him! But he eventually did arrive and, after dumping his stuff off in the room, we headed out to show him the town. Or at least the parts of it we knew! It was dark by the time we got to the square so we had dinner and a few drinks. I had led them back to the restaurant where Jaimie and I had first encountered Sol Negra and, sure enough, they still had it on the menu! Perfect ending to a long day.