Buenas Tardes from Mérida (KM 220.5)! It’s 40C degrees afternoon heat here. I’m outdoors, comfortable in the shade, and parked at a sidewalk café table. Moving a large muscle would do me in. The pedestrian walking streets in Mérida are equipped with fire suppression type nozzles that mist passersby with cooling water, lest they spontaneously self combust in the heat. Manuel, the Portuguese philosopher, and I did our walking today—16 kilometers into town—beginning at 5 a.m. We toured the Roman amphitheater ruins and visited the Plaza España center neighborhood following our arrival. Now, during life-shuts-down siesta heat, we rest. Mérida is a provincial metropolis with 50,000 residents. At this hour, in smaller towns, you could walk neighborhood streets without detecting any sign of human life. With or without air conditioning, everyone is defensively in behind doors. With no front yards or lawns, town streets present a stone walled, closed in, seemingly sterile face to the world. Later, after the sun sets, people bring chairs out on to the sidewalks which give up heat faster than sweltering rooms. “These Spaniards like to sing and smoke outdoors all night long,” says Manuel. There is evidence for that out on the evening sidewalks. We’ve done 220 kilometers in eight days, a small miracle.
