I made a wake-up call to Noemi, since this was her last day in California prior to taking a several-month contract in Washington D.C. The night befor I called Sprint to find out what happened to my Sprint FonCard. They had just sent it 4 days ago, about 4 weeks after they said it would be sent! I was able to get the account number and PIN number over the phone, so long distance calls back home should be easier now. Wwhile standing at the phone booth talking with Noemi, I had set a full bottle of purified water on the top of the booth. When I hung up the phone and went to get the bottle, it was gone. It had never been more than 2 feet from my head the whole time, but still someone managed to snag it.
At breakfast in Parque Hidalgo, I again ran into the local English teacher. and it was interesting to see local prejudices at work. I told him I was going to ccelestun that afternoon, and to that he replied thst while I shoul definitely go there to see the flamingos, that under no circumstances should I eat in any of the restaurants there as they were all dirty and unsanitary.
After a quick shower back at my hotel, I checked out and left Merida, headin west 60 miles to Celestun on the coast. On the way, in one of the small villages along the way, I passed a purple VW beetle rented from Hertz, I was to run into the couple driving it that night at dinner.
Celestun is a small fishing village located on a spit of land between the Gulf of Mexico to the west and a large lagoon to the east. It is in the lagoon, a 20 minute boat ride north of town that the pink flamingos have their nesting grounds. Tourists come here for the flamingos and not for the beaches, since the wind off the Gulf makes the water choppy and stirs up a lot of silt. Most tourists make it a day-trip from Merida. I saw at least small hotels in town, 3 of them on the beach catering primarily to tourists. The nicest 2 of these were multi-story structures, but these had experienced sever price inflationfrom when my guide book had been published, and a singl room at each was 120 pesos. While this was only $17US it was more than I wanted to pay, so I went to the 3rd hotel down the street which had about 12 rooms on one level, two out front by the street, and the rest in back around a courtyard facing the beach. I got a room in back, with bath, for 60 pesos Access to the back was via a hallway with several corners. They turned out to be to tight to get the bike around. After a couple of failed attempts to negotiate the corners, I gave up, backed the bike back out, and parked it in inside the front gate of the hotel. I took my usual precautions of locking the saddlebags and topcase, U-lock through the front wheel and forks, and then putting the bike cover on. ii also locked it to a pole with my cable lock. I really wasn't worried too much avout the bike, since it had taken such effort to get it inside the gate to begin with. In fact, Till that was done, I was as usual, at the end of the day, drenched in sweat, and my pants which had started the day freshly machine washed for the first time on the trip, were now the dirtiest they had been yet, from the sweat and having rubbed up against the green white-washed walls of the hotel's hallways.
After a shower I walked down the beach which was lined with beached fishing boats. The fishermen were still unlo