Mayan Merida

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We arrived in Merida in the early afternoon after a 4 hour bus ride from Cancun. We didn't want to be in Cancun any longer than we had to be, due to its reputation of just being an unslightly tourist town. Our hostel in Merida was a pleasant surprise being built around 2 courtyards with tropical plants cooling the air. We dumped our bags and headed out to see our first real Mexican town. Dan appeared to be a giant towering over the local Mayan people. Merida has a large indigenous Mayan population and the people look distinctly different to what you would expect a Mexican to look like. Many people tht we saw were short, with brown skin and friendly round faces.

All Mexican cities, like Spanish cities, seem to revolve around a main square in the centre of the city. So the square was our first destination within the town to get our base of where we wanted to explore. A friendly man from the tourist office was sitting under a tree on the main square, as it was a more lively environment for him than sitting in the tourist office. He talked to us about the town and showed us to a shop a few blocks away from the square, where we could buy authentic goods made by the local people, instead of the cheap goods brought in from China. He left us with a friendly shop assistant, who volunteers his time to help sell the locals' merchandise. We tried on Panama hats that had a larger brim for the local people when they work in the sun. The woven material came from the leaves of a certain cactus plant and it was very flexible and strong. He showed us how we could roll it up and put it in our bag and then watch it spring back to its original shape afterwards. With normal straw hats you would see it crack and loose its shape. Dan was interested in buying one of the masculine ones (I didn't like the female ones), but it was a bit expensive for a hat that didn't really suit him, even though it is practical. We looked at the hammocks and guess what, the threads that they are made from are the leaves of a cactus! Traditionally, the mexicans don't sleep in beds, they sleep in hammocks. The hammocks are so durable and because the cactus contains certain natural chemicals in it, the Mexicans never get bitten buy mosquitoes due to the repellant chemical, which absorbs into their skin from the hammock. Its true, so far, I haven't seen a mosquito bitten Mexican, not that we have been here for long. We would have loved to buy a "matrimonial" (double) hammock, but due to the size and weight it wasn't practical. Even buying a single one wasn't really practical, but it was such a good deal and Dan has always wanted one...

Our eating habits have adjusted to the Mexican way of eating, that is having breaksfast, a huge lunch and then a small dinner (if anything at all for dinner). Lunch isn't usually until about 2 or 3pm, but we had survived on snacks all day and thought a nice combined lunch/dinner would be nice. We found a small restaurant that existed of a courtyard and a kitchen and bar. Whilst eating the free tortillas and salsas, rain made an appearance with small drops. The locals must have known what was coming, because they shifted everyone's tables out of the open courtyard area into the surrounding undercover area. The next thing we knew the rain was pounding down and the courtyard, which was paved and slightly lower than the surrounding walkway, was flooding. The lightening was local, so the thunder boomed extremely loudly and the water started pouring down the spouts from the roof. We haven't seen decent rain like this since Cairns and it definitely had cooled the temperature of the day. After eating our fajitas, we made an exit when the sky had settled only to find that the streets had also flooded. We had to wade through the black water from the dirty street to get to the store for some cerveza (beer) for the evening. We went back to the hostel to shower and wait for the rain to fully pass by before we ventured out again.

Our friendly tourist guy had told us about a week long festival that was starting in the evening and that we could watch the local dancers from 9pm. So we wandered back to the main square to see the ladies in their white embroidered dresses and the men in their local Panama hats tap their feet and move into different formations. Our friend, the rain, appeared once again dispersing the crowd and it indicated to us that we were to call it a night.

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Photos

Try this at home!
Manyof the women carry things on there head here.

Hotel Trinidad
Our comfortable hostel

Authentics goods
We bought a cactus hammock!