LOCKED OUT
Today was my day to move to my downtown Airbnb while Martha and her helpers used the Tuesday to prepare for the arrival of 15 yoga retreat participants from all over the United States. I learned today that Martha was also supposed to lead several similar Road Scholar weeks at Montreal this fall but all were cancelled by tropical storm Helene on September 27 knocking out power and water and wreaking havoc.
So at 5 p.m. I took a cab to 27 Hidalgo, to Casa Lool Beh, my airbnb, just above La Cabra Iluminada, a marvelous vegan restaurant courtyard which had closed at 4. According to the Airbnb instructions I would enter the code they sent me into a lockbox and get access to keys to get into the building. I entered the code but the lockbox wouldn’t open. I tried it several times. No luck. Then someone walked out the door, which was the door to the restaurant and I pushed my way in. At the top of the steps were two more locked boxes. I entered the code in each and nothing happened. Finally I wrote to the airbnb telephone number, waited for a while, got a reply saying the code number was enclosed, but in spite of clicking everywhere on the message, no code number appeared. Just then I got a message from Martha that the group was at a downtown restaurant where we had planned to meet. So I lugged my knapsack and carryon downstairs and trundled up a block to the rooftop restaurant where we had a marvelous view of the red sunset, which happens nightly, since it never rains here in January. I got another message from the airbnb, claiming to give me the passcode, with none in sight.
So I gave up. My room in the mansion was still empty so I begged to spend another night there and to come back in daylight when the cafe was open and things might go better. Which is what I did.
As we left the restaurant we noticed that the square was jammed with people and a band was playing. A group with odd shepherd’s costumes with a flaming torch were getting their photographs taken and then, behind them and marching straight toward us was the band, exiting the square. I caught them on a spacial video.
BAND EXITING THE SQUARE
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0b9mdCnlWsaK8PQxdmk1FadMA
It turned out that this was the 256th anniversary of the birthday of Generalisimo DIgnacio de Allende Onzaga for whom, along with Saint Miguel, the town is named and we had just happened on the end of the celebration as the band was marching home. We stopped at a bakery for sweets and headed back to our mansion.
In the morning the airbnb finally sent me the new number, with no need to click on anything, and now I am settled in.
The moral of this story is that when traveling you often just have to take what comes. I think part of the confusion with the airbnb was that the Spanish of the messages was translated into Google English, a kind of pigeon English, that was difficult for me to understand, but without all that confusion I might not have seen the celebration in the square and been able to photograph the band.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 