I woke up feeling a little nauseous. Barry thought maybe it was because I didn't sleep well, but I wasn't so sure. I had only had one cervasa at the pizza place the night before, so it certainly wasn't a hangover. And Barry had had the same pizza and felt fine, so it wasn't the pizza.
When we were waiting on our breakfast to be served at the Hotel Xibalba in Palenque, I started feeling worse. After a couple of bites of plain toast, I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep it down. I bolted to our room and to the bathroom, where I lost my previous night's dinner along with the small amount of breakfast I'd eaten. (I hope that's not too much information!) We had to catch a bus leaving in less than an hour, and it was hard to even imagine traveling as all I wanted to do was lie down and rest. Somehow I got myself together, got back down to the table, and paid for our breakfast. We checked out and made it onto the bus just in the nick of time. I was still feeling a bit queasy and weak, but better than before my run for the porcelain god.
After analyzing what we'd both eaten over the past couple of days, Barry suggested that it might have been the salad I'd eaten at Entropia in San Cristobal de las Casas the night before last. That's something he didn't eat, and you know what they say about raw foods and Montezuma's Revenge. I figured the law of averages had finally caught up to me.
Fortunately, I was feeling better from then on out, just a little weak. I had no appetite and ate nothing at all until dinnertime that day. But, back to the story.
Today we our bus took us from Palenque back to Campeche, Mexico. When planning this trip in Belize, we certainly didn't expect to return to Campeche. It was initially just a convenient stop on the outbound portion of our trip, but turned out to be one of our favorite places we visited.
Fortunately, this bus ride was not full of sick, coughing people, and we had great seats right in the front row passenger side, giving us a wide-angle view out the huge front windshield. Since we'd booked all our tickets at one time in San Cristobal, we actually got these same seats (3 and 4) for the entire rest of our trip -- what a score. We could see so much more than out the side windows. And there were some interesting things to see!
We were able to get a room, but as a walk-in, the room we were given wasn't nearly as nice as the large, inside courtyard room we had the first time around. That room was quiet, with two beds and plenty of room. This room was on the streetside and was very small with only one bed. When the attendant left, we realized that it was going to be really, really noisy as the windows were ancient and didn't filter out much sound, and there was a lot of traffic on the busy street below.
We thought about asking for a different room, but we'd already put stuff everywhere and rumpled the bedspread, and I just didn't feel comfortable complaining, especially in a foreign language that I barely spoke. Times like this are when you really miss being able to speak your native language. Barry was in a grumpy mood because of the noise but somehow managed to take a nap -- I think he was just exhausted.
We headed to our favorite Campeche restaurant for dinner that night, Luz de Luna. I didn't risk having anything more interesting or spicy than chicken-vegetable soup with my stomach issue, but Barry had chicken fajitas, served with all the sauces he loves.
After many nights of firecrackers around the December 12 Virgen de Guadelupe celebrations, we'd expected some quieter nights at this stage of the trip, but we'd have to wait a little longer. Mexico is definitely a night-time kind of place and can be a bit of an adjustment for early-to-bed folks like ourselves.
Stay tuned as tomorrow we head back to Merida, but not without one last look at Campeche's attractive waterfront and artistry!