A long day of flying from my cozy west coast city to the humid environs of Yucatan Mexico brought me into the fine city of Merida, on new year's day, on an evening filled with decaying festivities and overbooked hotels as the locals from around the Yucatan state wound down from two days of partying. It had been my intention to visit North America's southern brother a second time, and on the list of regions to visit was Yucatan; it felt more like Central America here than the other Mexico I knew, Mexico City. I spent the evening wandering through the quietening colonial streets of this picturesque town, and eventually chatting for an hour with a travelling masseuse. Interestingly enough he extolled the high prices of masseuse in Cancun but had somehow ended up in Merida and refusing to seek gold on the east coast of the peninsula. I, on the other hand, was seeking to save gold, which would prove to be a difficult proposition as all of the budget hotels were completely full. This kept me wandering through the downtown streets until roughly three in the morning, until I finally capitulated and took a hotel near the bus station for about 100 pesos more than the other hotels I had been courting. Alas, but whatever, as it was still a mostly inexpensive proposition for a rather grungy place.






In the morning, or should I say at 11am, I set about to seek new accommodation and take a good look at this town; bustling with activity in the day, and also with tourists, there were plenty of old colonial monuments to see; I took my lunch at a small budget juice joint, with jugo mandarina on tap and something called torta de chorizo con huevos, which was basically a bacon and egg sandwich. Not too bad, quite rustic, but the juice was a better treat.





Plenty of nice churches adorn Merida's colonial core, as well as some commendable museums. The Maya exhibit is worth seeing, especially now as the Maya section of Mexico City's Museo Antropologica is closed for renovations. Oddly enough it was interesting that I had already seen plenty of Maya artifacts in Shanghai, as the Shanghai Museum had a major exhibit of Mayan artifacts on display when I was in that city on a different continent.

I had arranged to meet up with an associate for this journey, who had already been travelling for some time through Mexico. Upon our meeting we headed out for dinner to a small restaurant and bar with what I would find out would be a requisite in the restaurants of Yucatan - a pot-bellied Mariachi. For dinner we both tried Pollo Ipid, a traditional Yucatan dish, which seemed basically like a piece of cooked chicken on a large plant leaf. No real unique taste to it.

We wandered around Merida some more in the evening, sampling various types of margaritas and cerveza; tomorrow it is the intention to visit Yucatan's major architectural relic, Chichen Itza; for better or worse, I suppose it is important to visit these sorts of ruins while in the Yucatan area. I am not alone in thinking this, as we soon found out.





East to Chichen Itza



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