Santa Rosalia, BCS, Mexico - What Am I Eating?

My Spanish absolutely failed me today. I did fine at 7:15 this morning when we bought our bus tickets in Gro. Negro. But as soon as we hit Santa Rosalia I became useless. We barely managed to get ourselves a hotel room, and then only because it’s fairly obvious what one wants when one walks into a hotel with luggage. After a bewildering exchange with the proprietress and a payment of what might have been too much money – I am hoping for 10 pesos change, which Michael thinks we’ll never get – we stumbled over to a restaurant.

First of all, it’s hot here. Hotter than it has been anywhere else so far. Maybe that’s the problem. We went up on the patio of a restaurant, worried we weren’t allowed to be there, went back down off the patio and into the restaurant, were assured that yes, we could sit on the patio, went through the restaurant and back onto the patio and sat down.

That hurdle over, we turned to our menus. They had an assortment of egg dishes and something called chilaquiles. I came here to experience new things, so the chilaquiles piqued my interest. I asked the waiter what it was. He described something in Spanish and broken English that sounded ok, so I thought I’d get it. Fine. Well, the menu listed several choices under the chilaquiles heading, one of which was pollo (chicken). I hesitated for a bit, hoping my brain would supply a polite way to say what I wanted. When it didn’t I just blurted out, “pollo.”

Then there was more confusion. He was asking me something and I had no idea what he was talking about. Some kind of options for my food. I tried just saying “Si,” but that didn’t work. He was really struggling. I said, “Esta bien, whatever you think.”  But he didn’t go away. Finally he wrote down on his waiter’s pad: “1/4” and “1/2.” Oh. I’ll have a quarter, I guess, but what does that mean? Michael ordered huevos divorceados, which the menu helpfully translated as divorced eggs.

Soon our waiter came back with our food. I was very excited. I love trying new things and having that “hope it’s not organ meat!” feeling and possibly discovering something amazing. Huevos divorceados turned out to be fried eggs, one in green sauce and one in red. And then in front of me, the waiter put down a plate of… rotisserie chicken (1/4), mashed potatoes and gravy, and cole slaw. With raisins. I guess the waiter thought I had vetoed the chilaquiles. Oh well. I tried to be adventurous. Rotisserie chicken is good too.

 HOURS ON THE BUS: 35.5