Campeche

We took a city tour today to learn about Campeche. Fuerte San Miguel (Fort) over looks Campeche and was built around 1779. It was in the forefront of military technology. But it was used only once in 1842. The city used to have a wall all the way around it covering about 2 square kilometers. There were 8 bastions and two gates. This protection was needed because of the valuable exports from this area such as dye-wood (used in Europe to color textiles), hardwoods, chicle (chewing gum), salt and sisal (for making ropes) were in much demand by pirates who would pillage the town repeatedly.

We visited a quaint church, Iglesia de San roman, that houses a black Christ on a silver cross. The Jardin (garden) in front of the church was beautiful. The city itself if pretty and clean with lots of colorful homes and buildings. The downtown streets are cobble stone and very narrow. We had a Campeche cuisine lunch-- John had a dish with shark meat and I had fried tortillias with a shredded chicken and beans topping. I had a creme soup with Mayan spinach.

We got to the beach in time to see the sunset into the gulf. We are on the eastern side of Mexico but we got to see the sunset into the west because the peninsula turns northward. You'll have to look at the map to see what I mean.

Game night was fun -- I won a game of pool and John lost a whole 30 pesos ($2.40 US) at black jack.