Blogs from Merida, Yucatán, Mexico, North America - page 5

Why Merida 1. There are Catholic Churches everywhere. Across the street there is one, down half a block. Beautiful Santa Lucia is a few blocks away, the first Cathedral built in the Americas, half a block from the hotel. 2. Every 2 or 3 blocks is a park - All the parks have Wi-Fi 3. Great music 4. Great people 5. Cheap living; a really good hotel room for 2 is 50.00 to 60.00 US$, a single is 38.00 US$. A good Mexican hotel is 10 to 30 per cent cheaper. 6. Great Food. It is all delicious but it is also a little different, different cuts and different spice combinations. 7. Great Museums and Art Schools. There are 3 or 4 within a block of this hotel. Museum Mundo Maya will blow your mind. 8. ... read more

Uxmal – Kabah We took a day trip to Kabah and Uxmal. We were blessed with an excellent guide. Kabah was the ceremonial or religious center for this tribe of Mayans. It is only 4% excavated and it is still big. The tribe controlled about 170 Mayan villages in this valley. The valley has very fertile soil. Outside the valley, the trees are only about a third the size they are in the valley. Uxmal is huge and only 5% excavated. It was the government center for the trip. The major monuments where built over the former monuments five times over 271 years. Uxmal even had a University. The Mayan civilization was family based and very hierarchical, much like Europe. There was little or no merit based hierarchical movement. On the trip we met a delightful ... read more

Mayan Museum (Museum Mundo Maya) When you come to Merida, you must go to the new Mayan Museum. It is truly fantastic for a history lover. It is relatively new and located on the north side of town near the Costco store. The cost is 150 pesos for non-residents. It was supposedly built on the site of the last great meteorite collision with Earth that destroyed the dinosaurs and put Earth into the great ice age some 65 million years ago. You will never find a more educational experience for only 150 pesos. You start with a short eight minute movie. The movie is in Spanish but rather easy to follow for a non-Spanish speaker. In the museum you start with the history of the world and the asteroid that destroyed it for the fifth time. ... read more

Merida and costs The hotel is right off the main square in Old Town. It is the old classic hotel in Merida, built in 1901. Down the street is the Cathedral built in the 1540’s with the stones from the Mayan city. Merida is the oldest city in North or South America. I used to love Cancun when I first started going there in 1990, but it so big and commercialized that I will not be sad to never see it again. The people in Merida are so nice with little western influence. The main languages are Spanish and Mayan. A few have lived in the US or know English but it is very few. Today I was out walking north and then took a city bus. I had to get some stuff from Walmart. On ... read more

Lost in Merida Only an idiot can get lost in Merida, more specifically, this idiot. The streets are numbered odd going east to west and numbered even going north to south. It has been a fun day. Had an early breakfast and went to the language school. Everyone was teaching so I wandered around. The reviews of the school are excellent and I think the teachers spend their time teaching not writing good reviews. I was then going to walk up to the History Museum to see their new Mayan exhibit. Some- how, I turned around and got lost. So, I finally took a bus. That is when the adventure began. Old bus, no AC and it drove the back lanes. You could feel every bump and when he went over the speed bumps, the back ... read more