Merida Coffee Saga (When You Realize You Have a Problem)

Cowboy coffee in my new apartment

After my 5-hour bus ride yesterday and moving into my new Airbnb, I was pretty exhausted last night. However, there was nothing in the house to eat or drink, and no coffee maker for the morning (the horror!) so I decided to trek up to Wal-Mart at about 8:00 and get groceries and, most importantly, coffee and a French press. What little energy I had left ran out after the walk up there (about 15 minutes along the beautiful Paseo de Montejo) and I found myself in a mentally fragile, zombie-like state as I walked around the giant supercenter trying to remember what was on my list, which of course I left at home.

As I was at last finishing up and heading to checkout, it dawned on me that I hadn't gotten the French press. Close call. So I walked over the the aisle where I knew they were (I've embarrassingly bought two here before) and the shelf was empty. Really, Wal-Mart Merida– a run on French presses? I searched high and low, but they were nowhere to be found. I looked at electric coffee makers but they were not cheap, and I don't like them anyway, so I was torn. Desperate, I grabbed a box of coffee filters, thinking I could rig something up, and went home feeling disappointed.

When I got back to the apartment (I taxied), I was unpacking my groceries and realized that of the three things I went to Walmart for (coffee, a coffee maker, and milk), I had come home with only one. I had no coffee maker and I had forgotten the milk. Half dead at this point, I was asking myself what was wrong with me (why did I have such strong make-my-own-coffee principals?) as I grabbed my wallet and walked out the door to go to the convenient store and buy the milk. When I got back I Googled "how to make coffee without a coffee maker" from bed, and found a fun-looking "cowboy coffee" method that simply involved boiling the water and coffee in a pot. Had the French tricked me all this time? Quite possibly. I passed out after this aha moment.

This morning I woke up, cleaned up the house and got organized, and set to making my cowboy coffee. Unfortunately, the can of coffee I bought last night did not have a convenient peel-off top and, you guessed it, required a can opener. Of course the apartment didn't have one. Again I thought about giving up, but since I had come this far, it was back to Google for me.  Instead of what I should have Googled ("how to break your coffee addiction"), I looked up "how to open a can without a can opener," and got to work pounding a knife around the can's rim. It worked pretty well, and in a couple of minutes, voila! I was able to open the can and make my coffee at last.

As I sit drinking it as I write this, what is my assessment of the cowboy coffee method? Not bad, actually. Tomorrow I'm going to experiment with another method that involves constructing a kind of coffee tea bag with a paper filter and a string. Nobody said addiction was easy.

Money spent today:

1,100 pesos - groceries (including a really nice yoga mat)
25 pesos - taxi home from store

1125 pesos = $58 USD