Boda Mexicana and lots of dancing in Merida..

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Our first impressions of Merida were not the best, not only because we spent about an hour over our supposed to be 20 mins trip into town, but also because most of the streets we drove through seemed very run down. As soon as we got to the center of Merida, and saw all the beautiful colonial style buildings, we decided we did like Merida after all - quite a lot, actually! Apparently Merida has the 3rd largest ´centro historico´of the Americas, only surpasses by Mexico City and Havana.

Our hotel was located just off the Paseo de Montejo. This is a boulevard modeled after the Champs Elysees, as wealthy plantation owners in Mexico felt the city needed a more grandesque street for them to live on. The street is full with beautiful mansions, many of which are now museums or banks. They were originally built by wealthy plantation owners, but when the henequin trade collapsed because of the introduction of synthetic materials, they could not afford the upkeep of these expensive homes anymore, and many were neglected for years. One of the mansions had been turned into the lovely boutique hotel Rosas y Xocolatas, where we caught up with Rafa and the LBS gang that had come over for dinner and drinks on Rafa's last night as a single man..! The amazing mango margarita (with a rim of salt and jalapeno pepper powder) deserves a special mention, especially given that this drink at this fancy place still only was about GBP 3.50.. Gotta love Mexico!

We spent the day of the wedding exploring the lovely city center, and visiting some of the museums. One of the churches we had looked at actually turned out to be the venue for the wedding! And what a beautiful wedding it was... My understanding of all the undoubtedly beautiful things that were said at the wedding was unfortunately limited, but I did catch both of them agreeing, so I knew we were good for dinner and drinks later on 😉.

The reception took place in one of these amazing mansions on the Paseo de Montejo, to be more specific, the one that had been turned into a museum that we were supposed to visit the next day. As Rafa's friends from abroad, we were fortunate enough to sit at the table with the bridal couple, so we got the chance to finally meet the beautiful bride. Just for the record – they make a great couple 😊. And as we had secretly already expected, the wedding turned into a great party, with tasty food and drinks, lots of music and dancing, and everything taken care of – including even the flipflops for the ladies once the feet get tired. The Mexican line dancing (or whatever you would call it) rocked, and dancing and singing with the LBS crowd and all the other guests on Guangam style reminded me again of what a global world we live in..

The wedding fun wasn’t over yet, as we were invited to a brunch at the beach in the laidback town of Progresso, only half an hour from Merida. After some delicious seafood, the brave ones of our now smaller LBS group (read: Steve didn't go, I did) went for a swim in the sea, which turned out to be surprisingly warm.

Our last evening in Merida we spent enjoying the live music and dancing on the central square. Okay, people did look a bit strangely at us when we joined in. I am still not sure whether that was because of our obviously not so Latin moves, or because of the fact that we were about twice as tall as any of the other couples. Nevertheless, we had fun. Apparently there are performances every day of the week, mainly attended by locals rather than tourists. Sounds pretty amazing to me!

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