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DAY 20, Thursday, February 22, 2018
NEW SHOES; ROCK’n’ROLL AT MERCADO 60
The next three days were devoted to healing my feet. It is amazing how easy it is to take our ability to walk for granted. I needed my raw blisters to heal, and I needed new shoes. On top of that, Wanda's laptop screen was acting up.
In fact, Wanda’s laptop screen was pretty much dead. Although it would occasionally and randomly come back to life for a few minutes, it was mostly black. Wanda Google searched for an Apple Genius Bar (she still had her smartphone, I had my iPad, and the Airbnb had good WIFI). We found one at the Gran Plaza Mall. She made an appointment for later in the afternoon.
My feet were a mess, and my Rockport shoes were only making them worse. We figured we could find new shoes at the mall while attending to the laptop. Wanda doctored my blisters as best as she could. She used up the last miracle Band Aide Hydrogel on one huge blister, but I had many raw areas that were starting to turn an ominous shade of purple. We needed ointment and bandages as well as new shoes.
While waiting for the Apple Genius Bar appointment, I practiced my guitar and rested my feet. Later, with a little iPad research, I found a bus to the mall that required almost no walking. Off we went.
SIDE NOTE: We noticed that when someone buzzes the bus driver to make a stop, he immediately opens the door well before he stops. I pointed out to Wanda that at home, the bus driver would be fired for doing that. Here, they expect the passenger to have enough common sense not to jump out until the bus actually comes to a complete halt, and they do. Of course, he leaves the door open while he grinds through all the gears and gets up to speed. This open-door routine had the added benefit of keeping the non-air-conditioned bus just a bit cooler.
Wanda had purchased a pair of high-tech sneakers just before the trip. They were made of a super lightweight fabric that gave them the feel of wearing slippers. She was pleased with how comfortable they were and urged me to check out shoes like hers. I was programmed to think that I needed sturdy hikers, but I also knew that they would hurt until they got broken in. We found a few shops that had sneakers like hers, and I tried several on. Naturally, it was the most expensive pair that immediately felt terrific, even in my decrepit condition. I had no choice. I paid $110 US – ouch, but the relief was immediate and wonderful. My feet were still a mess, but they weren’t going to get any worse. The Rockports went into a garbage can.
We then went to a large anchor department store at the mall that had a pretty good pharmacy. We looked everywhere in Merida and couldn’t find the magic Band Aides. We did pick up on some good bandages and various sizes of band aides. The lady pharmacist recommended a liquid antiseptic that she swore by, so we bought that too.
The young Hispanic nerd at the Apple Genius Bar declared the screen to be nearly dead and, after some research, announced that Apple no longer had replacement screens for it. The laptop could work with an auxiliary screen. To do so, we would have to go into ‘settings’ and change the display settings to ‘2 screens’. To access the display settings, we would have to wait until the main screen would randomly work and then quickly navigate to the proper settings. The plan was to take the laptop back to the Airbnb, turn it on, and if the screen ever came back on, go into settings and make the change. If that happened, we’d return to the store and buy an HDMI cable to hook it up to the big flat-screen TV in the Airbnb.
Before returning to the Airbnb, we found a Denny’s-like Mexican restaurant and had sopas and fluentas and fruit juices. All was yummy. We rode a taxi back to the Airbnb. Dr. Wanda worked on my feet with the new supplies. The shoes were a huge improvement, and I was beginning to appreciate the light slippers-like feel. I will never buy leather Rockport hikers again.
Being Thursday and feeling smug about my new shoes, we attended the evening concert at Parque Santa Lucia at 8 pm. Then we went to the hip bar scene called Mercado 60 on Calle 60, just a couple of blocks from the Parque. Mercado 60 is a collection of small restaurant bars surrounding a large patio under a roof. Thursday night was rock’n’roll night with live music starting at 9:30 pm.
Wanda figured out that Uber operated in Merida. She downloaded the Uber app on her phone, and we ordered an Uber taxi to go to the Parque. It worked great and only cost something like 30 pesos ($1.60 US), and since you prepay with a credit card, you get the best exchange rate and no haggling.
I don’t know if Uber is good or bad. It is about half the cost of a regular taxi in Merida. Is it putting hard-working cabbies out of business? That would suck, but it does give other people a chance to make some money, of course, without any benefits, not that Mexican cabbies get any benefits. And there is that goofy co-founder of Uber, Travis Kalanick. With all the negatives aside, the Uber system utilizes technology-to-the-max to provide a modern, insanely efficient, inexpensive public transportation system. And my feet appreciated this. Regular taxi companies should incorporate Uber’s software efficiencies.
The concert in the Parque was awesome. They had the same big Mexican swing band and costumed dancers as last Thursday, but they had a different Mexican nylon string guitar quartet this week. They were also terrific, utilizing intricate Latin rhythms, great solos, and tight vocal harmonies. As good as this lead guitar player was, and he was good, last week’s guitarist was crazy great.
So far, we had heard nothing but extraordinary musicians in the Yucatán. We weren’t prepared for how horrible the rock’n’roll band at Mercado 60 was. They started about 45 minutes late, which wasn’t so bad, noting how horrible they were.
Curiously, they pointed their vocal speakers at themselves, like stage monitors. Consequently, the audience could barely hear the vocals. The guitar player was terrible. The drummer and bass players were OK at best. The keyboard player was the best player and knew it as he dominated the band, hogging all the vocals, and his keyboards were way too loud. They had a very cute girl singer that should have been out front singing some lead vocals. From the little I could hear of the vocals, she was a pretty good singer as well as a looker. Instead, they had her tucked in behind the drummer, and she only got to do some occasional backup singing.
With the band being a disappointment and the drinks being on the expensive side, we decided to pack in. Wanda conjured up an Uber taxi, and we returned to the Airbnb.
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