Friday night Ex-Pat dinner, and Roger chats with the Policia

A weekly ex-pat dinner party has developed on Friday nights at the restaurant at Hotel Gutierrez.  Peter, the chef at the restaurant, is a wonderful host, speaks English, Spanish, German and possibly some other languages.  The meals are large, served quickly and very reasonably priced.  And somehow, even with about 20 of us there last night, he always manages to have all of the meals hot and ready at the same time.  Peter is open for breakfast 7 days a week and also late for dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

As usual, we had a fun time meeting guests of various ex-pats as well as some people we hadn't met before that own at Playa Maya, about 8 km north along the beach.  Peter's restaurant is licensed to serve beer only. Many guests used to being their own wine and use Peter's glasses.  However, he has mentioned that this could cause him a lot of trouble with the authorities so if you go there, PLEASE do not bring any alcohol with you.

Ex-Pat Friday night dinner at Peter's restaurant

Menu is on the left.  All dishes under 100 MXP

So, that was last night.  Then this morning Chucho drops off two guys to finish up some painting at our house.  They're not there even ten minutes when one of them comes to me to say they are out of paint.  My first thought was "Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?" but then I remembered that this is just how things work here.  I had briefly thought yesterday of checking their supply but I didn't.  The biggest problem here is that they only work about 4 or 5 hours on Saturday and the Comex paint store is over an hour drive away.  Regardless, I jumped into the car and took off for Merida.

I may have mentioned some time previously about the military and/or police road blocks all over on every major road and blocking many intersections.  They are primarily looking for guns and drugs and always seem to just wave me on by although they seem to stop a lot of the Mexicans.  Lately, Chris and I have been joking about my dark tan and hair getting so long that they're going to start stopping me soon.  Well, today was the day.

So the Policia stopped me at the Chunchucmil corner, just 15 minutes out of Celestun.

In my haste to leave for the drive to Merida, I found that I had left with no driver's license, no ID and no passport.  Then to make matters worse, I couldn't seem to find the car's registration document, only the insurance paperwork and of course, that was in someone else's name!  Naturally, the cop spoke no English and so I fumbled along in my poor Spanish, understanding enough to realize they wanted to write up an infraction, I could not drive away, and I was in a little bit of trouble.

So the cop was friendly enough, in response to my naturally friendly Canadian smile and easy-going personality.  But then his boss came over to talk to me.  His entire English vocabulary turned out to be "Where you from?"  Well, just when the first guy was sounding like he was thinking of letting me drive back to Celestun, his boss wasn't about to let me go anywhere.  I offered to call a friend to bring my license to me and they said I had one hour to do that but I was still getting an infraction written up.  I grabbed my cash to ask how much the infraction was, when ....... I found my license!  After all that, I had it with me after all! They still weren't happy about no other ID or passport and the car not in my name but decided to let me go. But they warned me that if I got stopped in Merida I would definitely have an infraction.

Time for a haircut?

The day went from bad to worse when I discovered that I hadn't brought enough cash with me to buy the paint and not even a credit card.  I did have my debit card but after 7 different cash machines refused to give me money I had nearly given up.  The Comex store said I could pay on debit but it wouldn't work there either!  Luckily, I found a HSBC bank in the mall across the street and that cash machine worked for me!  I was so delayed getting home that the boys were gone for the day so, no painting today.  :(