Mudrida

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Tina Writes

There's nothing more annoying than being at an amazing place such as Chichen Itza and the thing I'm dying to get to is the car for the air con. It was the same at Ankor Wat. These are places I've dreamed of seeing and ended up fairly quickly saying 'I don't care about these stupid monument's, get me to the air conditioning'. So the lovely air conditioned drive to Merida was easy enough until we got into the large town and the roads became pretty chaotic. Our hotel was right in the centre too. When we finally found it, we discovered the on-site parking was in fact off-site, so Rob went with the reception guy to the parking lot (car park – Rob) about three blocks away while I checked in. I asked them to give us a quiet room, that I had messaged ahead asking this (which they ignored) and they kindly switched us from a road facing room to one at the back, however it had twin beds. I hummed and hawed for a while before deciding Rob would have to do without his spoonee for the next 4 nights.

The room was quite nice, quiet (ish) and the twin beds were actually doubles. We then headed out for some dinner. Just before we did though, Rob had a bit of an 'eye of the needle' situation and then said he felt a bit shit, so at the restaurant he had spaghetti alfredo, because 'Italian' food obviously won't poison him. Ok then. When we got back to the hotel, Rob started to feel cold. Uh oh. Then the chills started. So that was him for a good 24 hours having about the worst time of his life. I reminded him it couldn't be worse than our Thailand food poisoning but its hard to remember such things when you feel like you're going to die. He had weird hallucination type things as well and thought the hotel were somehow reading his mind.

I was woken at 7.30am by the cleaners who had decided to sit in the courtyard, directly outside everyone's rooms and chat and laugh loudly until 8.30am. So much for the quiet room. Our room was also directly across from the cleaners supply cupboard which they were in and out of constantly. They left their carts there which had their walkie talkies attached to them, so from then on every few minutes 'kssshhhhh blah blah blah ksssshhhh' So loud! Off I went to reception to complain. I just wrote a whole spiel onto google translate and let them read it, explaining Rob was ill and needed to sleep and what had happened noise wise. We will sort that out right now they say.

I left Rob in bed and went out myself. We absolutely had to get a washing done as I was totally out of underwear and as the last washing took two days, I couldn't wait until we had a bit more laundry. Of course it was ready for 8pm that night, tut. I then wandered around in circles, no idea where I was or what direction because I cant read a map to save myself even when its a google map, fully automated and leading me wherever I tell it to. I think I realised a few days in that I had actually walked passed our hotel several times without realising. I even went for something to eat alone. I don't think i've ever done that before. It got me to thinking if I could travel alone, something Ive always wanted to want to do, but I don't. I hate being alone, sad eh!. The cafe was playing The Beatles so I couldn't help but sing and bop along, so they all thought I was a bit mental too. Mental, loco, lonely gringa , white as a sheet, they thought. I had some tortilla soup which was also mental as I was dying from the heat.

I bought some bottled water and got Rob some electrolytes drink and headed back to the hotel. Rob was still out for the count and not improving much. By around 8pm he managed to get up and we went out to pick up the laundry and get some dinner though. We could see and hear something was going on in the main square. I had read loads of stuff goes on every night in Merida. There was a big crowd of people all standing looking a the nice church and a cordoned off area with bleachers for people with tickets to sit on. It was a fancy light show where they project picture lights onto the church face that's lined up perfectly and it projects images that support the story being narrated along with it. It was in Spanish though, so we couldn't understand any of it. I got bored after about 10 minutes and we decided to continue our restaurant search. We walked through the square where there were these cool seats made of stone that we decided to try out but I didn't realise my seat was soaking wet. I sat directly in the minging puddle and my arse was totally soaked. As i'm swearing all of the swear words a guy just starts talking to us trying to get some sort of money out of us. Rob says to him 'i don't mean to be rude but no thanks'. I was quite shocked actually. Didn't stop the guy. He had a cat in one of those backpacks that have a clear dome for them to see out of. It was boiling hot and he's got a cat in a fucking backpack with a green house like dome on it. I said to him the cat must be hot in there. No no, its got vents. Whatever mate, your cat doesn't want to be in a fucking backpack. It is not a dog. Ive seen these things with cats in them a few times. Cruel as fuck if you ask me. For attention seeking, non animal loving, cretins.

We found a restaurant and we ordered a sharing platter of what you get in Mexico no matter what you order, different meats, guacamole, mole and tortillas. Poisoned Rob ate a lot of it. On the way out I could smell something, something I wanted. It was coming from the restaurant but the dessert menu didn't have anything that this smell would come from. I followed my nose to discover the restaurant had its own Marquesita shop. Excellent, that's pudding sorted.

The next day, we were awoken at 7.30am by the cleaners chatting and laughing loudly in the courtyard. Great. Clearly they couldn't give a flying fuck about their guests. We decided to drive to the beach town of Celestun. I had read you can see the Flamingoes here but we might need to get a boat trip. These could be a bit dear unless you have a full boat of 8. When we arrived a guy tried to do us on the parking so we just drove away from him and parked a bit further up the road. We headed to the beach and the pier where there were big peilicans. Immediately, a guy came up to us offering a boat trip. I could see he had a family ready to go and I reckoned we were the last two that would fill the boat. It would cost $300 pesos each, which was very good and with it being quite late in the day, I thought we should take the opportunity but Rob didn't know any of this and brushed him off. We walked away and I told him it was a mistake. Luckily after a few minutes the same guy comes running after us and offers it for $250, excellent. So we're getting to do the trip for £10 each. We were with a Mexican family who were nice and friendly. We got front seats and the speed boat took off from the shore at great speed, doing lots of fast turns and giving us all a thrill. I was happy. The boat then approached a mangrove and we sailed up there. The boat man was telling the Mexican family what we were seeing, in Spanish of course. Once he finished, the youngest of the family took it upon himself to explain it to us in English which was a lovely gesture. He told us there there were crocodiles and snakes. Robs meltdown ensued haha. Then we did some more speedy stuff and stopped about 700 yards out from the shore onto a sand bank and he told us to get out. It was cool and weird being able to stand in what felt like the middle of the sea. I say stand, it was a bit like quick sand. We would sink to about knee level with every step. Apparently the mud like sand was an exfoliant so everyone was rubbing it all over themselves. I'll just stick to my Peeling Solution thanks. After this I expected the next thing to be the flamingoes but seemingly its not the time of year for the large groups of flamingoes and we had to get off the boat and pay a guy $20 pesos to drive us from the shore to another water hole where there were about 14 Flamingoes , It was a bit disappointing. I was rushing to try and get my trainers back on and to get more SPF on as I felt my skin burning really bad. Both of these things are an absolute nightmare when you are covered in sand and sweating profusely. Once I managed that, I rushed to get a picture of the far off Flamingoes. I went to walk to the water edge and realised I was about to walk right into the Mexican families photo so I dodged around her back and with this went flat on my arse, slipping in the mud sand. I came down with a bang and was now covered in mud sand. All over my butt and my trainers now resembled mud stubs on the end of my legs. The Mexican family were in a flurry helping me up and pouring their bottled water over my hands to help me clean up a bit whilst Rob put all of his strength into not bursting out laughing and to taking pictures of the skid marks in the mud and my mud covered arse. I'll tell you what, the Flamingoes were no longer of interest to me. Pure rage and embarrassment was all I could feel at this point.

We headed back to the boat and that was our trip complete. We said adiós to our Mexican friends and thanked the guy for translating a little for us. The beach was nice and we had our swimmies with us but we didn't bother going in. I reckoned in a few days we would be in our 5 star hotel with pristine beach and plenty time to do that there (more on that in the next blog). We found a nice restaurant that specialised in fish and I had a great seafood cocktail. Rob had chips cause he was still not quite back to normal. After that we headed back to Merida.

I went looking for one of the many many street shoe cleaners that are everywhere but couldn't find one so I just continued with my mud covered trainers, stomping as I walked to get bits off. I only had one other pair of shoes with me, Croc sandals (not the typical Croc style ones though!), that aren't really appropriate for anything other than walking to the beach or something. I also didn't have anything to clean them with, so I just thought i'd find a shoe cleaner the next morning. That evening there was more stuff going on and tonight they had stopped the traffic going down the street next to our hotel and all the restaurants had tables on the road, it was nice and we picked one of those. As much as id like to sit out on the road tables, its just too hot so we sat inside near a fan. We had some Yucatan food, which like the other Mexican food we've had, consisted of meat, guacamole and tortillas but arranged differently (see picture). Full to busting, we headed back to the air conditioned room and watched some Still Game.

Last day in Merida was reserved for Uxmal ruins. About a 45 minute drive away. Another £25 each to get in. These were quite good actually but a lot of it seemed to be cut off. Im guessing a hang up from Covid. These ruins were quite extensive and they looked a lot more structured but once again the heat was intense. I try really hard to ignore it and pay attention to the wonderful sites in front of me but its hard to see with sweat pouring into my eyes. We were not here for long but we seen everything we should have, I think.

On the way back we decided to go to one of the Cenotes. I had marked it on my googlemap from a youtube I had watched. The satnav took us down a dodgy pot holed road. When we finally got to some civilisation, there were signs for centoes everywhere. Our satnav was telling us the one we wanted was still 2km away but there were some cones in the road to prevent you going further and a guy waving us down to go into their bit. This is typical, guys at the side of the road wearing fluorescents, waving roadworks flags . We stopped for these guys in Vallidolid and realised they are just crafty, trying to get you to go to their cenote. So we just drove straight passed around the cones. We drove down to where the satnav said and there was a guy asking for our ticket. Turns out you have to get your ticket back up at the cone guy. So we turn around and by this point we were just not in the mood and headed back to the hotel in silence.

Once back in town, I decided I wanted to go to the Walmart i'd seen. I love doing this when we've gone to America. Its one of Robs favourite memories going to Walmart with Louise and Billy (cousins) in Florida back in 2009. It was pure crap! Haha but I did buy a dish scrubber to clean my trainers with and Rob seen a Mexican version of his mum.

We parked the car back in the lot and went for dinner at a nice restaurant around the corner. There was a lot of food! And it cost us bloody £70. I don't mind paying out for good food as some of you will know, but it just wasn't that great and i'd have been just as satisfied with a couple of tacos. My steak was well cooked and good meat but it was covered in rosemary. I love rosemary on chicken and lamb but not beef man. Rob thoroughly enjoyed his ribs though.

That was our last night in Merida. The next day we had a 5 hour drive to Playa del Carmen where our 5 star, luxury, all inclusive for the last 5 nights of the holiday awaits. Ive been looking forward to this. Its going to be great, isn't it?.....isn't it?

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Comments

[Ace Vision treks]

Thank you
Hi Tina Thank you so much for sharing your great informative post. Look forwarded to see next!

[Louise]

What an adventure so far 💩 🏞 🥵 🚤 🦩 🌮 🍤