Mexico - Winter 23/24

Trip List Calendar

2023-12-12 : Walking tour and Trova musical performance
We met a couple from Germany (Helge and Ana) at our AirBnB in Valladolid. As it would happen, they were moving on to Valladolid on Monday - the same day as us. When we parted ways they said ‘maybe we’ll see you in Mérida’, which I thought was unlikely in a city of 1.2M. Well, oddly enough, when we went for a walk this morning, who did we run into but the German couple. They told us they were heading to a free walking tour of the city… in English. So we abandoned our original plan and went on the walking tour. It was more of a stop and listen tour than a walking tour but it was really informative and added some things to our must-do list. Our tour guide, Fernando from Tijuana, was awesome.

After the tour we grabbed some gorditas from Gorditas Doña Gorda for lunch. Unfortunately I must say that I don’t like them as much as the deep fried ones we had in Querétaro. I think I’ll wait to have any more gorditas until we get there in January.
This evening we walked around Merida which is very festive - much of the city is decorated. Then we enjoyed the free musical performance at the cultural center which happens every Tuesday evening.


2023-12-13 : Airport bus recon and Mercado downpour
Our recon mission to the airport was successful but not as we expected.

We knew right where the bus was supposed to stop - two blocks, and around the corner, from our AirBnB.

We would get on it when it was ‘inbound’ to the city, and ride it in and then back out because that was our most convenient stop. We went out and we waited… and we saw the bus coming but then it turned away before it reached us. I thought we must have seen one on its way outbound and wasn’t worried. Brent, on the other hand, questioned it. And then he noticed a hand-written, weather-faded cardboard sign that said the bus doesn’t stop there anymore - it stops at the corner of x and y streets. Oops.

So we walked to the corner of x and y streets but there was no indication of which direction it would come from or where it would stop. Thankfully both streets are one ways so that made the options less.

We stood at different sections of the intersection, me looking west for an eastbound bus and him looking south for a northbound bus. I thought the bus would come straight north or straight east and stop, so Brent and I had those options covered. When the bus finally came, eastbound, Brent realized at the last second that it was going to turn north instead of continuing straight so we had to hoof it across the street to catch it.

Bonus - where we catch it is right around the corner from our AirBnB.

After that it was mostly clear sailing. We rode ‘inbound’ as expected, turned outbound to the airport. When we arrived at the airport, everyone got off except us, which was confusing to the driver. He didn’t understand where we were going. Finally we used the translator on his phone to tell him ‘we need the airport tomorrow. We are riding the bus today to learn how it works. We go back to Merida now’. He was very happy with that explanation. :)

When we got back to town we visited the delightfully chaotic Mercado but also got caught in a fairly enthusiastic downpour.


2023-12-14 : Merida - Walking tour part 2
Today we went on another walking tour of Mérida, put on by the tourist office. It was really interesting and thankfully we learned a lot of stuff we didn’t get on the first one.

After the tour we visited the gallery in the Palacio del Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán.
This evening we walked down to the Noreste station to scout a bus for Mayapán for tomorrow. Then we had fancy dinner at the only rooftop restaurant in town: Picheta. The Iglesia de San Cristobal was very festive with flags on it. Then we headed to Santa Lucía Park for the Thursday night music and dance performance.


2023-12-15 : Izamal
A couple of days ago I asked Brent to help choose some excursions from Mérida. There are just too many choices for me to narrow it down. He found a really great blog (the Bamboo traveler), which describes the author’s 15 favorite excursions. From that he chose Mayapán for a Mayan ruin excursion, and we chose Izamal for a village and Homun for Cenotes.

We decided to go to Mayapán today and researched the the terminal and scheduled. This morning when we went to buy our tickets, the lady told us that Mayapán is closed for renovations. Dang! Well, good thing we had chosen a couple of other excursions so we could fall back on one of those. Since our AirBnB is a fair hike from the bus terminal and we weren’t carrying our swim/Cenote gear, the backup plan was to go to Izamal.

We were lucky enough to get on a bus right away and off we went. Izamal is one of Mexico’s magical towns, and is known for most of its buildings being painted yellow.

When we got there, we immediately gravitated to Convent of Saint Anthony of Padua which faces the town square and is impossible to miss. Brent also spotted the Pirámide de Kinich Kakmó from the ground and we decided that that would be our second stop.

When we climbed up the ramp to the convent, we were immediately approached by Mauricio, a local guide, who gave us a pitch to take a tour of the convent with him. We like to support the locals, we always get a lot out of the local guides, and the tour would include a stop at the baño, so it was a yes for me.

Mauricio gave us a very interesting tour of the convent, and then we went off to the pyramid and climbed up for a view. Then we had lunch at Restaurant Muul, which Mauricio had recommended. Then we went off to see the Pirámide de Habuk, which wasn’t really a pyramid so much as a collection of buildings.

It was at Habuk that I got heat sick for the first time on this trip. We cut it short and went to wait at the bus station. I’ve been doing reasonably well with a schedule of afternoon siestas, but with today being an excursion, a cooling siesta was not an option, and I quickly learned that I really do need to avoid moving around in the afternoon heat. Brent has taken to saying that we’re acclimatizing well to the heat. It seems he is, and I…. am not.


2023-12-16 : Merida - Parque La Plancha and Anthropology Museum
I’m still not feeling great from my heat overexposure yesterday so we’re taking an easy day. We walked over to have a look at the new Parque La Plancha, which was suggested by our walking tour guide, Fernando, a few days ago. Then we walked back with a stop at Museo Regional de Antropología.

At the Anthropology museum I discovered how well the Google Translate app works on photos. It did a fantastic job of translating the museum placards which were all in Spanish.


2023-12-17 : Merida - Biciruta
I caught a cold on the bus from Izamal so I’m taking it easy but I was still able to make it out for a short ride on the Sunday morning Biciruta. Every week they shut down the northbound side of Paseo de Montejo to vehicle traffic. There were supposed to be some more streets blocked off as well but no… it was just PdM. The highlight was seeing the Monumento a la Patria at the north end of the Biciruta. We dropped the bikes off and walked down to the main square to see the weekly market.


2023-12-18 : Merida - Sick day
I was down with my cold today so we didn’t do much. We dropped off our laundry in the morning and then were going to take a circuitous walk to the grocery store. Turned out the route I chose was a little too circuitous and I ran out of steam before we could reach the grocery store so I had to head home and Brent had to go to the grocery without me.


2023-12-19 : Merida - Mercado and City Museum
I was down with my cold yesterday so we didn’t do much. Today I’m feeling quite a bit better so we got out for a while this morning. We visited the sprawling Mercado (actually two Mercado side-by-side) and then the city museum.

The Mercados were delightfully chaotic and we bought some lemon bread. The museum was interesting but we only got through the first floor before I started to crater and had to head back to our Airbnb. We’ll go back and see the other floors another time.


2023-12-20 : Merida - Failed bus trip and Casa de Montejo
This morning I sketched us out a plan that involved taking a Va y Ven (city bus) to go to the Gran Museo del Mundo Maya. The bus was supposed to stop right around the corner from us.

We went around the corner but there was no Va y Ven sign. There isn’t always a sign (looking at you, Ruta Aeropuerto) so we weren’t concerned about that. It didn’t take long for one of the busses to come by and Brent tried to flag him down but he flew right on past. Turns out the stop is further up the road and there IS a sign. Oops.

So we relocated and were waiting with a couple of locals. Several busses went by but didn’t stop because they were already too full. Finally we got one that stopped but he wouldn’t take cash. We had to have a special card to ride. Ugh.

I thought I had seen on the internet that you could buy a rechargeable card at convenience stores. We have a Six nearby so we walked over to it. Although it was 9:15 the Six was not open. Argh!

I have been wearing out well before noon with this cold so I was concerned that, by the time we got the busses figured out, I’d be done for the day and we wouldn’t have actually done anything. We decided to go downtown to see the museum at Casa de Montejo instead. Enroute we would try to find some Va y Ven cards.

We stopped in at a Circle K (who knew???) and asked and the lady pointed us down the street to the OXXO. Enroute to the OXXO, we stopped in at the tourist office and they reiterated, OXXO. So we stopped in at the OXXO and were successful at buying two cards.

We then continued to Casa de Montejo but it didn’t open until 10:00. So we decided to head in and have a look in the police station which was supposed to have some kind of display. It was a very small display, but they do have baños there, so it was a worthy stop. We still had some more time to kill so we went off to see the Templo de San Juan de Dios, which, if our first walking tour guide was correct, and Brent’s memory hasn’t failed us, is the second-oldest building in Merida.

Finally we went off to Casa de Montejo and had a look at the preserved home and display of Miguel Peraza’s art.
After being here for over a week already, we finally discovered our favorite taco joint in Mérida… literally right around the corner from our AirBnB. It has only been in operation for a month. It’s spanky clean, the young proprietor is very keen and friendly, and the food is amazing. Who would have thought to put mashed potatoes on a taco?? This guy. And it is delicious!


2023-12-21 : Merida - Gran Museo del Mundo Maya and church walk
This morning, to celebrate that I’m feeling (mostly) better we celebrated by going for breakfast down the street at Chuc.

We then successfully took a Va y Ven bus up to Gran Museo del Mundo Maya. I had thought to take the bus only part of the way back after and then walk the rest of the way but I was starting to feel run down and it was quite hot out so we opted to take the bus all the way back.
We left early this evening to go for a walk and dinner. We were going to go back to Parque Santa Lucia to try again to see Yucatán Serenade and get there early enough to get chairs but apparently you have to be there, literally, 90-minutes ahead of time to get a chair. So we bailed on that.

On our walk we saw lots of interesting buildings, seven churches, and a bazar, among other things.


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