Activity Summary
Tuesday 2nd May - Day 243
Travel to Merida
Kibum Cafeteria
Merida walking tour:
Parque de Santa Lucía
Iglesia de Santa Lucía
Museum / art centre
Iglesia de Jesus
Catedral de Mérida - San Ildefonso
Palacio de Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán
Plaza Grande
Museo Casa Montejo
Dinner at La Chaya Maya
Wednesday 3rd May - Day 244
Centotes day - Santa Barbara / Homan
3 cenotes:
Cenote Xoch
Cenote Chacksinkín (Santa Bárbara)
Cenote Cascabel
Cafe Central Mid
Dirty burger dinner at Flamante Burgers & Friends
Summary
Merida
Quite a big city and apparently one of the safest in Mexico. It was a nice city to walk around and there are a number of things to do in terms of day trips outside of the city but the cost of these were pretty sky high compared to the rest of the places we had been in Mexico.
In the end we spent a fair amount of time in the city and also saw some cenotes, rather than Uxmal and Celestun but we were happy with that.
Transport
Merida
Campeche hotel -> [cab] -> ADO bus terminal -> [ADO bus] -> Merida -> [cab] -> Hotel
Accommodation
Merida - Hit Hotel
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £11
We had to share a bed this time but at least it was a super king. Very simple room with lukewarm water and an incredibly narrow bathroom which meant either sitting on the toilet side saddle or kissing the wall.
Diary
There were plenty of buses to Merida so we chanced it by turning up at the ADO station by flagging a cab from the street by the hotel and had no problems with our last minute approach. While waiting our collective sweet tooth desire came a knocking and ended up with an ice cream waiting for the bus, which did help with the heat of the bus terminal. Luke was sad to drop half his chocolate coating on the floor as it turns out no Mexican magnums are ever intact.
It was one of the shorter bus legs we have had of late, only being 2 or so hours which was quite nice. Luke spent the time being ever productive and researching Costa Rica and Nicola stared out of the window, sometimes playing solitaire which Luke found out she just cheats in when playing so kind of just defeats the point?
At the Merida ADO bus terminal we hailed a cab from outside and baulked at the $100 fee to go 10 minutes down the road. We didn’t put up a fuss as it would have taken us 20 minutes to walk in 39 degree heat but it turns out this was our ‘introduction’ to Yucatan and the more expensive touristy side of Mexico.
Fortunately we were able to check in a few hours earlier into our hotel so we dropped our bags and went over to a cafe, Kibum Cafeteria. We chilled, chatted and had a more substantial snack to prepare for our later walking tour. Nicola’s croissant was alright and Luke well and truly satisfied his sweet tooth craving with a Nutella waffle, more Nutella than waffle, with a cafe mocha frappe. Not the best but hit the itch.
There was a quick stop over to Telcel to top up Nicola’s SIM card (3.5g of data is not enough for a month) which in itself was quite an interesting experience. The store was massive with an unreal number of counters, of which no one seemed to be doing any work. We eventually found the one ‘working’ cashier at the end.
Luke had wanted to take a tour to Uxmal temple of which Nicola was willing to join if the cost wasn’t too much as she had been with Uni before. Our hotel had a booklet of tour prices that put Uxmal plus two other sites he wasn’t interested in for $1,000 (£45) and this was reiterated wherever we went at tour operators. Similarly it would have cost $1,500 minimum to get to Cellustan to see the flamingoes, who may or may not be there. So all we had worked out was that Merida was expensive and we weren’t paying that for a tour so we parked any planning for the next day.
With Luke on a sugar high he was in a pretty good mood and this was reflected in his class participation with our walking tour guide, asking plenty of questions and making attempts at light hearted humour. Once again, it seemed the tour guide couldn’t really understand him but this didn’t stop Luke. One of the more fun facts was that Merida is widely regarded as known as the safest city in Mexico from a combination of paying police officers serious money with perks of families getting the best education to stave off corruption and a shed ton of cameras. It was nice to know but we hadn’t felt unsafe anywhere in Mexico so far in the tourist locations we had been.
The walking tour wasn’t too shabby. We were again joined by Steve and Lee which naturally made the tour more entertaining and light hearted while the tour guide was fairly entertaining. There were only 8 of us in the group, one of which was a 5 year old girl who could not give two monkeys what the guide was saying and took to clapping two giant leaves together like a monkey with a miniature cymbal (Hot Chip reference anyone?). Nothing on San Cristobal mind although a 5pm walking tour shift had all the hallmarks of pulling a graveyard dnb set.
There was not a whole lot of walking involved in this walking tour, really only going around a few blocks, the stops being:
Parque de Santa Lucía - where we met and had a more upmarket bougie feel about it.
Iglesia de Santa Lucía - a church where we spoke more about the two fruit trees in the courtyard. One was supposedly sweet and nice to eat while the big cannonball style fruit was incredibly poisonous.
Museum / art centre
Iglesia de Jesus - the guide pointed out areas where the church had been built and incorporated with old Mayan temple structures which was pretty interesting, displaying old Mayan ‘pictures’ in the Church stone walls.
Catedral de Mérida - San Ildefonso - the big cathedral in the town centre that doubled down with some pretty jazzy coloured lights at night. The lady with her child sadly had an accident with their pistachios which ended up all over the floor outside the church and Luke being the gentleman he is (along with Steve) helped collected the mess. All to the backdrop of some pumping church hiphopera (not). But the church music was certainly more pumping than usual.
Palacio de Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán - the city government building was free to roam around and had a massive collection of art throughout. Quite a warm building so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time here.
Plaza Grande - the town centre was really nice; really relaxed with open space, people chilling and kids running around after various light up toys being flung in the air.
Museo Casa Montejo - stopped listening at this point but it was a pretty well decorated building.
With the tour concluded we were advised that a usual tip of US$10pp ($180) is recommended which we thought was a rip off so we paid our usual $200 for the both of us and in typical non confrontational fashion, ran away to the square.
We were joined by Steve and Lee where Nicola continued making next day plans with them while Luke chatted away with the Czech lady, who semi regularly lost sight of her daughter that had made friends with some Spanish kids without speaking a single word of a common language. It was all quite refreshing to see. In this we had learnt that Tulum is apparently not the safe Yucatan haven we expected and that her friends, who were local Mexicans she had met while living there, were afraid to go out at night and there were shootings all the time. Solidified our decision to cut Tulum out of our plan.
With our cenote plan solidified, thanks to some solid collectivo advice from our tour guide that would save about $1,000 each by avoiding getting a tour, we parted ways with the team for some dinner at La Chaya Maya, a local Mexican restaurant that seemed popular and well regarded. Nicola was happy with her lime soup and Luke, in deciding to jump back on the experimental food wagon, was served an equivalent of a Mexican turkey pie that could not have been more dense. Not one for the recommendations book. The waiter got himself in a bit of a pickle when trying to charge Luke’s card and cut himself out of a tip when selecting the payment option not in MXN and costing us more on FX rates.
We were once again up and out of the door for 8am to meet Steve and Mee at the Collectivo stop that would take us to Santa Barbara / Homan for a day of exploring some cenotes.
In typical colectivo fashion we were waiting for another 30/40 minutes before appropriately full to take off. It was a long drive to the Cenotes but we were in pretty decent seats given our early arrival at the bus stop.
There are a number of free and cheap cenotes around the Homun area but rather than struggle from one to the other we settled for the easy tourist option and paying the $250 entry to ‘Cenote Santa Bárbara’ which housed 3 cenotes, each with different attributes that allowed swimming and would just make our lives easier. We were each given a fixxy bicycle to get between the cenotes incredibly easy, minus the fact the roads weren’t great and breaking involved pedalling backwards but none of us had any great issues.
First up was cenote Xoch, a fully enclosed cenote bar the small opening in the ground fed by rocks and a staircase down into the pool of water. The tree roots that dropped over 20m into the water were pretty cool. We padlocked our bags to the railings (always on edge about stuff being nicked) and spent some time floating around in the clean and pretty clear groundwater that’s fed from essentially holes in the ground.
As it got busier we packed up and went over to Cenote Chacksinkín (Santa Bárbara). Here the water was an amazing deep blue colour where sunlight from the half enclosed, half open hole was able to penetrate. There were some great stalagmites coming from the ceiling and a decent place for us to jump in.
Lastly we went to Cenote Cascabel which from the waters edge, was the most picturesque spot of the day. The hole in the roof with a great big tree standing tall on the edge with its long roots dropping down into the ground was stunning.
The water was less appealing with the open top roof making the water less sparkly than the previous two. But after some time swimming we got cold and hungry so we called it quits.
Nicola and I chowed down on our tuna sandwiches before we all made the executive decision we didn’t want to hit up any more cenotes as it would take some time to get there by the Mexican equivalent of a tuk tuk. Reception called the collectivo for us (much easier than waiting and hoping) and within 10 minutes we were on the bus back to Merida. This time we were less fortunate in seat allocation and being squeezed in the back row with two other Mexicans was not comfortable.
Back in Merida we relaxed for a bit to cool down and then spent the afternoon in Cafe Central Mid researching and making various bookings we needed for the last stages of Mexico and Belize. At this point we confirmed the cancellation of plans to go to Cancun, Playa del Carmen / Cozumel and Tulum citing it was pretty much just beach things to do here, Nicola has already been, the cost would go up (American tourists fault) and we could use the days elsewhere whereas these places were very easy to holiday in if Luke was desperate. Beach days were a coming soon anyway.
The cafe was more comfortable than Kibum and the nuggets and chips were very much appreciated by Nicola who was craving potatoes but overall it wasn’t as good. But it allowed Luke to run to the ADO bus terminal for tickets that wasn’t too far away and gave us airconed refuge for a few hours.
To celebrate our successful afternoon we continued to shun Mexican cuisine and settled on a dirty burger dinner at Flamante Burgers & Friends. It was pretty good.
Back at the room we packed and continued watching Mando.
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