Day 5

Today was Campeche exploration day. We started in the morning by getting up on the city walls near Puerta de La Tierra and our hotel. Walked the wall in both directions, which gave us a nice overview of that part of the city. Then we went to the pirate museum below in Baluarte San Francisco.. The descriptions of the myriads of pirates who attacked Campeche was surprising. From there we walked to a large attractive-looking colonial building that we spotted while walking the wall. It was a private mansion in the 18th century, then a school, then prison but now it’s a city archive. We should add that they keep government buildings, especially the historical ones, open to the public even on Sundays. On the way to the main plaza, we stopped at another public building where we met an American couple and talked to them for a while. Tom is a retired doctor from Connecticut and Carla – an art dealer. They live in Merida’s centro historico in an old colonial house they’ve renovated. They told us funny renovation stories, and we were amazed at how inexpensive the renovations costs are still here. They seemed to really like Campeche to the point of considering buying a place here. After that, we continued to the plaza and went into a museum in the former governor’s house. It’s the same colonial house onto which they were projecting the digital show last night. This small museum in a beautifully restored building was amazingly well done. It included a brief overview of Campeche’s history and its maritime significance. One of the rooms included models and descriptions of all types of vessels that the Spanish and the pirates used. All descriptions were also in flawless English, and the museum was free. We continued our walk to another historical house – Mansion Carvajal, but unfortunately it was closed. Bo read in some article about an old movie theater in Campeche, which is somewhat of a cult building. It was the first modern movie theater in the area built in 1951 in art deco style and equipped with the latest technology. It can be seen in Steven Soderbergh film Che-part 1 and Che-part 2 from 2007. At some point this theater was converted to a parking garage, but you still could go inside and see it. We walked all around it trying to get in, but it was impossible, and it looked like it was in really bad shape. After a short break we embarked for dinner and sunset. We went to Tio Fito and had a table on the patio overlooking the beach. The sunset was not better than at home but the food was great. Bo ordered an octopus (pulpo) and was a bit apprehensive about it, but it turned out to be delicious.