I said nothing about NYC. I was so busy trying to see everything but managed to see very little. No time to catch up with you while I was there. But, it's a wonderful town, as Frank said.
Had been frightened of visiting for many years, but I felt safe, if a little crowded out by bloody tourists. I have to go back, stay downtown to minimise the travelling, and stay for at least a week, maybe two. Oh, and I'll go in the spring or autumn next time. Bloody cold!! (Below is the view from the Empire State Building. Waste of time going up really, but we'd left it until the last day, and it started snowing, then raining.)
So, from NYC, a flight to Cancun. We knew we'd have to catch the bus to Merida. We just didn't know it would be so difficult. A delay of about 45 minutes trying to take off from Newark. And in Cancun, the pilot wasn't able to score a gate for nearly an hour. We waited stewing in the tropical sunshine on the tarmac in our NYC outfits.
That meant that the 4.00 p.m. bus to Merida, which we'd intended to catch had already left. The next one was full. The ticket seller suggested we go to Cancun town bus station and buy a ticket from there. More seats available than at the airport. So, we bought the tickets. Bus delays; we wondered if we'd make the bus we'd just bought tickets for. However, we did make the 6.15 bus, meaning we'd arrive in Merida after 10 p.m.
The Clingon had not made contact with the people at VHQ--who were to meet him and take him to his digs--when we got on the bus. Access to the Internet was eluding him when I dropped off to sleep. When I woke just after 10 p.m., he told me that he'd managed to make contact.
Abram was there holding a sign with the Clingon's name on it, when we got off the bus in Merida, and that's the last I saw of the Clingon. As perhaps you can imagine, when the Clingon drops off the rock after 19 years, it's a shock. And there's a bare place: no tenant, now. Does the rock have any purpose when the offspring has sprung off? This rock is bereft.
The bus station is in the hotel area of Merida; I hadn't made a hotel reservation and was trusting to luck. I chose the familiar name: Holiday Inn. Big, but not as huge as a couple of the others in the street. Bid the Clingon goodbye with the fuzzy head that comes from having woken from an uncomfortable nap. Hadn't worked out the money thing, I realised before I went to bed. The Clingon was going to his fate with no pesos, and no way to get any. (Not true, thanks to the powers that be. Although he'd told me earlier that he'd left his bank card at home, apparently he hadn't, and has managed to withdraw money to buy water, and take the bus.)
I didn't say goodbye properly. I didn't kiss him.
So, while Merida sings and dances in a cacophany of competing sound systems; while the crowd parades by the longest cake in the universe; while families and couples and groups wander around, happy, soaking in the atmosphere of the "Three Kings" celebrations (a celebration of the day when the kings visited Jesus Christ in the manger), I am alone, with my glass of white wine, in a crowd of cake-eating humanity which belongs.
I have managed to contact the Clingon by telephone, but it hasn't been easy. (If you're ever thinking of getting the Austpost travelsim, just ask me about it before you pay the $50. There has to be a better way; it must be less trouble and distress to get a local sim that actually works and allows you to text and call whenever you want to.)
However, I was able to get in touch with the Clingon finally, and we will meet tomorrow night to say our goodbyes, and tie up loose ends.
While I've been writing this, the tables laid out on the street in front of the hotel have been cleared. Not sure how it happened, or when it started, but the pieces of the longest cake in the universe have been sold, or cleared away, and now the longest set of tables in the universe is bare. The vendors are walking down the street with bags and tablecloths. Now the tables are folded and the crowd is dispersing. It's all over bar the shouting from the young persons on the P.A.
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Location:Avenida Colón,Mérida,Mexico
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