February 13, 2018 Fly to Merida. Dinner – Chava Maya

February 13, 2018 Fly to Merida. Dinner – Chava Maya

Going to Mexico in some respects is traveling from a known culture into an unknown culture.  That is the charm and wonder that keeps drawing us back to Mexico, but I can see how it can be a little frustrating if one is irrefutably connected to U.S. culture. I will give two or three examples from today’s events to illustrate the cultural differences.

We awakened for our 6:05 a.m. flight on American Airlines at 4:00.  I showered and dressed and we left the house at 4:35.

We flew to Phoenix we ate breakfast at an airport restaurant named Bravo located across from our departure gate for our American Airlines flight toMexico City.  We each ordered a Machaca Burrito without the tortilla and with tomatoes and fewer jalapeño peppers, which resulted in our receiving a a 2 ½ by 6 or 7 inch long styrofoam container filled with a mixture of eggs scrambled with strands of roast beef, jalapeño peppers, onions, sprinkled with fresh chopped tomatoes. After a minute I asked Suzette, “can you eat a corn tortilla,” When she answered, “Yes.”  I asked the attendant if we could if we could have a corn tortilla and she immediately shouted through the open window into the kitchen  tortillas that had been heated in oil appeared at the window.  I thought we could only eat one Machaca filled tortilla, but there was so much Machaca that we filled two tortillas with lots of Machaca left over.  Here is a picture of one tortilla being filled with Machaca.

We boarded the flight to Mexico City at about 9:30 a.m..  It was a four hour flight across most of Mexico.  We decided that customs would not allow us to bring food into Mexico, so I ate the bagel I had made the night before smeared with cream cheese and garnished with slices of Lax and onion and Suzette ate a brownie and a piece of coffee cake Jerry made for the Sunday night BBQ dinner to honor Sandy’s passing that Billy and Elaine had packed for us.

We arrived in Mexico City and made our way to the Internet ticket counter for our internal flight to Merida around 2:00.  We were now on Mexican time.  The flight was scheduled for 3:55.

We were told to “Check back at 3:00.”

Then at 3:15 the departure board showed “delayed 20 minutes.”

When were sent to gate 10 to wait to board at around 4:00 only to find the crew waiting for the arrival of the in bound flight.  Finally it arrived around 4:30 and we boarded at around 5:00.  None of the Mexicans seem to be upset about the delay so we waited patiently along with them accepting our fate as the normal course of events on Mexican time.

The three hour flight meant that we arrived in Merida after 8:00.  We went to the rental counter and told the employee that we had decided to wait two days to pick up our rental car.  He smiled and wrote down the address for the in town rental bureau where we could pick up a car on Thursday and we bade him farewell.

We took a taxi to the Gran Hotel, the oldest hotel in Merida, dating from 1907, and were shown to our room.

We then walked three blocks up 60 th St. on which our hotel was located, which is one of the main streets in Merida to Sta. Lucia Plaza to a recommended restaurant featuring Typical Yucatan Cuisine.  We tried to order venison but were told that it was served only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Of course, who would consider ordering venison on Tuesday, just because it was the suggested house specialty on the menu?

We ordered a dish called the Three Musketeers that was three crepes, each covered by a different sauce, pipian sauce (a sauce made by roasting and then grinding squash seeds into a paste) on one with without tomato and annatto (achiote in Spanish) and one without tomato and annatto (achiote in Spanish) and the third with a very interesting black mole that was a little less sweet and a little more picante than the variety we tasted in Oaxaca last year.  The most interesting aspect of the dish were the three lines of creamed banana extruded from a pastry sack that formed the separations between each section of the dish with their separate sauces.  We had never had creamed bananas, so we asked how it was made and our waiter said the bananas are grilled until soft and then combined with heavy cream.

The banana sauce was thick, sweet, and creamy.  Our first introduction to the virtuosity of Yucatecans’ utilizing indigenous fruits into their dishes.

We drank beers with dinner and walked back to the hotel happy around 10:30.

Bon Appetit