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Published: November 3rd 2010
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We arrived in Merida around 6pm; the sun was going down and the streets were empty. It was raining, and the end of town where we arrived was run down and eerie. However, it was a Sunday evening, so we were not surprised that everything seemed dead. Merida is the capital of the Yucatan, so we were sure that the following day we would see lots of activity. We started to walk in the direction of calle 68, where our room for the night was located- at Yucatan Vista Inn. There seemed to be nobody around, and the inn was a good walk, so we turned back and decided to catch a taxi. As we were driving down the road, the street lights became fewer and farther between. All of the buildings were flush along the streets, with narrow roads separating one side from the other. Everything was located behind a hole in the wall. All of the holes in the walls were shut.
Yucatan Vista Inn appeared to be a nondescript red building with a brown door. When we arrived we indicated to the driver that we wished him to wait until we had managed to get into the
building before he drove off and left us. The door was locked but we knocked a few times, and were greeted by a friendly British face, going by the name of Alan. We were shown to our room- the inn was lovely and clean with a homely feel. We were very tired and did not know the city, so decided to order Domino's for dinner instead of going out. We watched A Knight's Tale on the TV in our room, and went to sleep early, planning for an early start the following day.
We woke early and decided to immediately move to Nomadas Hostel for the rest of our stay in Merida. Although the inn was lovely, we decided it was too quiet. We spent half of the morning getting our turtle photos developed, dropping off our laundry, and moving hostels. After carrying out these tasks, we walked into the centre of Merida to check out the city.
Merida was a beautiful city. There were lots of pretty buildings, and a central square which provided wifi and plug-ins for anyone wanting to use their laptops. We thought this was a really nice way to bring the community together.
The centre seemed almost European, and like any other small city we have ever visited. It was bustling with locals, and had numerous clothing and electric/ mobile phone stores. There were a number of important buildings that we decided to look for, using our map.
In the afternoon it began to rain so we decided to take a trip to Izamal which is an important Catholic city just outside of Merida. Every building in the town is painted egg-yolk yellow. As soon as we arrived we heard really loud bangs and Katie thought someone had a gun. She tried to get back on the minibus but eventually agreed to tiptoe around the centre. We decided to take a horse and trap ride as there was not a lot else to do in Izamal. The ride took us around the 5 remaining Mayan ruins, but the most exciting part for us was the loud music pumping from the black market cd stands.
Throughout the horse ride we seemed to be getting closer to the 'gun shots'. Katie got scared and requested the driver to pull the hood up. We were relieved to get out of the trap as we
had been taken down some real 'one horse' roads. We found a really cool ice cream shop where luke bought a giant pot of every possible flavour ice cream (including sweet corn) for 35 pesos. Bargain. As we were waiting for our collectivo to fill up we saw a procession of people coming down the road, the people were carrying vegetables and other offerings. We then realised the bangs were Mexican people setting off fireworks from whilst holding them. Crazy. We drove back to Merida in the most horrendous rain storm.
On the evening we went out for dinner in the central square. We ate on a little balcony of the restaurant overlooking the gardens and church. It was really nice and we even had free cocktails. We walked back to the hostel with some bargain beers and watched the end of Cool Runnings.
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