We ended up out of range of cell service two nights ago, and last night it just wasn’t working, so this blog is the past two days and today. Two days ago was great. Yesterday had challenges. Today we are regrouping.
 After driving through the narrow streets of Valladolid, we elected to get the hell out of Dodge and headed for Ek Balam. We’d visited the ruin in 2009, and knew it was remote and we liked it, and we heard that they had opened up a cenote nearby. |  They had, and it was lovely, and we were able to park in their parking lot where it was cool and dark and very, very quiet. |
The cenote was beautiful, and Tom jumped in from the rope swing. He says it was higher than it looks in the video. Also, he probably had 40 years, at least, on the next oldest person using the swing.
This was the view out my kitchen window at X-Canche.
Here’s the camper parked in the dark. Homey, huh?
We went for a walk and saw these gigantic caterpillars. Anybody know what they are? We’ve seen caterpillar masses like this in Belize, but the individuals weren’t this big.
Yesterday was a bad day and we had our first owie on the camper. We had a smooth drive from X-Canche to Merida, and got off the main road to go to a Chedraui supermarket to stock up on food. On one of the wide and beautiful tree-lined streets, we hit a low hanging branch which dented our rail.
It ran all the way along the rail and dented the back rail on its way out. The good news is the rail did the job it was designed to do and protected the solar panels and the roof. The damage is annoying and we’ll get it fixed while we’re here, but it is annoying to have dinged our shiny new camper.
When we got to the Chedraui we went in to shop, and as I was looking at mangos, one of the employees said, “Hay lluvia” which means “It’s raining” because he heard it on the warehouse type roof. Tom raced out of the store to close all the vents and windows, but little did we know that was just the start to an hours-long downpour which allowed us to discover a few leaks in the camper that we had missed because we’d always pulled it in the garage when it rained hard; in retrospect, this wasn’t one of our better plans.. We had intended to go park in a city park that allows overnighters which is near some friends we are planning to visit, but at this point we admitted defeat and got permission to spend the night in the Chedraui lot. So, here is my view out the rain spotted kitchen window.
The good news in the Chedraui lot is that we had a police guard. All. Night. Long. We could hardly see the flashing lights with our eyes closed.
Today was a fairly calm day. We’re in Merida for a week or so to take care of some medical stuff before we we head to the US where we really can’t afford to get sick. We managed to leave the Chedraui lot, get to a Scotiabank to get some cash, and get to the hospital where we had an early afternoon appointment without any undue hardship. The weather is still a bit iffy, but it hasn’t mattered for today.
Here’s the view out the kitchen window this evening. We’re on a private road behind the hospital so the 7AM appointment tomorrow won’t be much of a hardship. And, it’s quiet and will probably be relatively dark tonight. Tomorrow we are planning to venture back into Merida, hopefully avoiding trees and more damage to the camper, to visit friends and find a welder.