Having arrived by bus in Merida at 4:45am, Emma has managed to locate a hotel near the bus station for the next 3 nights. Turning up at 5am puts them under a bit of strain, guests don’t check in that late (or is it very early?) and after some negotiation with the young desk clerk they let us check in straight away. So it’s off to bed and don’t wake up until midday - so needed the sleep!
Emma organises car hire for the next three days and we try to get laundry done up the road but it’s closed. Backpacking clean stuff is ok but when it’s a bit whiffy in high heat …! So we go and explore Merida. Lovely place, quite quaint and it has a book shop, where we look for a book on the Ruta Puc and Maya sites (recommended by Diane) and surprisingly we find ‘Incidents of Travel in Yucatan’ by John Lloyd Stephens in English! The central square is lovely and beside it is a bank in a colonial house which is open to explore. Across the square is the old Palace de Goblerio (Government Palace) with enormous paintings called ‘Dialogues of the Conquerer’ which are amazing, detailed and evocative of the Maya being conquered by the Spanish.
After a quick dinner we head off for a free walking tour of the centre of Merida. Starting with the impressive ‘Monumento a la Patria’ we walk down the Main Street taking in the large, Parisian style buildings which are now museums, bistros, banks and one is still a family home! The guide also lets on about how the Maya liked nose piercings with wood, used wood to flatten out the front of the skull for beauty purposes and filed their teeth to points and had jade inserts. Fashion doesn’t change much over the centuries!! While walking Alex finds a local fruit, a louche, which he uses as a green football, but much heavier.
Heading back to the hotel to get the hire car we finish the day off with a couple of beers by the pool, booking a hotel in Cozumel, finding out about cenotes and making a birthday call to Faye x
It’s the 16th of November and we are up early to drive to Celestun on the coast, fortified by pastries from the eatery across from the hotel. We arrive an hour early (traffic was light and roads were good, quite strange for Mexico!) for our kayak trip through the mangrove swamp and river area of the Biosphere de la Los Petenes. What a trip! Our guide has lived here all his life (40ish years?) and the business is all about conserving the local wildlife and habitat, really great ‘eco’ credentials. For the next 2 1/2 hours he is excellent, gently punting us around the area spotting an amazing amount of wildlife including owls, iguanas, baby cayman, a boa constrictor, egrets, herons, and loads of local birds including flamingos, we recorded over 28 individual sightings what a treat!
Absolutely buzzing from an incredible wildlife experience we head to the local beach restaurant, La Palpa, for a gorgeous lunch of coconut battered shrimps with peach washed down with homemade lemonade. Alex has a great time hunting for shells on the beach.
Heading back to Merida we stop at the Cenote el Picito Hunucna. Sounds grand but it actually is a small cenote in a family’s backyard. Emma and Alex enjoy sharing the cool water with some catfish whilst I entertain the family children with counting in English/Spanish from one to ten.
The changing room is their bathroom and their kitchen is an open fire in the backyard. The laundry business they run takes place in the open air in the front of the house. The few pesos I gave the children are readily exchanged for sweets in the local store, somebody else’s front room. The 100 pesos for using the cenote really makes a difference.
The following day again we are up early to visit various Maya sites following the Ruta Puc. Some lovely fruit bowls accompanied with hot chocolate from the cafe across the street helps us get going. So firstly we head to Uxmal to the south of Merida. Uxmal is a stunning place dominated by the massive Sorcerer’s Temple, the Nun’s Quadrangle, massive Ball Courts and the House of the Turtles. The ball courts are where ritual games took place where the losing (or winning - depends upon the guide!) team ended up being a human sacrifice to the gods! Heads you win - or not as the case may be!
We move on down the Ruta Puc to Kabah to see the Great Palace and the Kodz Poop. The Kodz Poop is covered with beautiful carved friezes of the god Chaac with a characteristic long curled nose, and there were nearly 250 of them.
We go to Sayil, which is very spread out with another huge palace.
Our final stop is Labna with large masks on the buildings and a stunning monumental arch / gate and watchtower.
Heading back to Merida we are anticipating our dinner at a typical Mayan food restaurant, the Chaya Maya. The food is great as we try a selection of Mayan dishes with Alex having ‘pilbil’ and chicken tacos. We of course had to have margaritas to help the food down.
A long day of ruins is finished off by a horse drawn carriage ride along the ‘Paseo’ main road where we had walked the previous night.
Now it’s the 18th of November and we are heading east to explore Izamal, the Ciudad de Amarilla or Yellow City. The place is beautiful and we have a lovely walk around finding a convent and then heading up a pyramid for a lovely view around.
We lunch at the Kinich restaurant which serves delightful venison of the region plus pork with orange and Alex has salbutes (a type of sausage).
The afternoon is dedicated to cenotes. We go to Homun to the Santa Barbara cenote which turns out to be a bit ‘resorty’ so we skip it. Parking in the town square we get a motor taxi to take us around 3 cenotes. A cenote is an underground cave filled with fresh water, the Yucatan peninsula is awash with then because of the underlying limestone bedrock. Some theorists think they are related to the huge meteor impact crater in this area erupted to have wiped out the dinosaurs. For the Maya the cenotes provided the source of freshwater and some were associated with religious ceremonies. Homum Kosom is our first cenote and really just a hole in the ground but inside is quite open with a very simple wide and shallow pool with a bit of natural light from a hole in the roof. We are not sure about the electrics for the lights and the mix with water but can’t hear any electrical buzzing so must be ok! Alex fillings himself in with reckless abandon!
Our next cenote is the opposite, a small, convoluted, intimate cave with just 6/8 people in it, really atmospheric it's completely closed and we read about the odd ecosystem of the cenotes often connected to the sea and weird deep creatures a long way down. It is surrounded by incredible trees and roots and beautiful outside and in.
Our final cenote is slightly bigger but deeper in the ground and hosts a small colony of bats! The experience of being in fresh water, some depth underground against the heat of the Yucatan is just brilliant. The steps and ladders down might be slightly more improvised than the West but just adds to the experience!
After the wonderful waters it’s back to Merida to hand back the hire car and then catch another bus East to Valladolid, arriving at 11:45 pm but at least we have a hotel booked in which to sleep!
Guy
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