Where is Marfil you ask? Is that some new overnight? Well, I've been at this location probably 20 times in the last two months alone. Marfil is the technical location of the crew hotel for the Guanajuato overnight. The whole setup can be confusing because the airport is labeled as "Leon" on the departure boards, while the airport is actually in a city called Silao, and the hotel is in Marfil despite its own description as being in Guanajuato. Muy complicado. Anyway, I feel like I have done pretty much every museum in the city of Guanajuato, so I couldn't motivate myself to get in a cab again.
I elected to stay in Marfil, which unlike Guanajuato is not a UNESCO heritage site, but is home to various car dealerships, convenience stores, and an Applebee's (which I have been repeatedly warned to never eat at). Quite often my lunch consists of some packaged carbs purchased at the Oxxo mini mart.
After my "lunch," I decided to walk around the neighborhood a little bit, just to get my legs moving and hopefully encourage my body to be tired enough to fall asleep early enough to prepare myself for another early morning flight tomorrow. While the buildings in Marfil do not possess the same kind of colorful architecture as its neighbor, it is not completely without its charms. I eventually stopped at a small park outside a church to sit for a spell before heading back to the Holiday Inn Express.
It was a mostly safe walk except for a tunnel I had to walk through. The sidewalk did continue inside the tunnel with ample room, but I was more concerned about the ventilation as I did not see any fans to move the air around. Luckily it was a short tunnel and I was soon paralleling the Carrera/highway by the hotel once again.
For dinner I stuck with the flight crew staple of tacos just down the street. It is a very unassuming place. The kind of place your mother would frown upon, but it is quite safe.
The kitchen is within full view and despite having just three walls and a tin roof, it is kept quite clean. I do not know anyone on a flight crew who has gotten sick from eating food in Mexico, unless it was Applebee's.
The captain and I were offered meals during the red-eye last night and immediately declined. Airline food can be a gamble sometimes, and I speak from firsthand experience. I was taken out by a beef wrap a few months back. As the captain later stated, "I feel a lot safer eating street food in Mexico than the salmon in the first-class meals."
Words to live by.
