Falling for Mérida

Our journey continued deeper into the Yucatan peninsula as we continued along the highway to Merida. One note for future travellers, ADO buses are FREEZING cold! And I’m so glad I brought warm clothes like my leggings and hoodie, as it would have been pretty unbearable without them! It’s also a good idea to book buses in advance when you can as all the stations we’ve been to always have a massive queue for tickets! And, the standard class ADO bus you can book online has prices which seem to fluctuate a lot, well, there’s always a fixed full price for the journey, but some times have discount (I guess if they are underbooked perhaps) so we’ve been keeping our eyes on tickets, being flexible and booking usually the cheapest one a few days before. This has saved us a lot of money really, some have been 50% off full price! For the second class buses like ADO SUR and Orient, you can only buy at the station before boarding, but they are usually cheaper than the standard ADO anyway…

We arrived in Merida and walked the 15 minutes walk to our accommodation. We were staying at Casa Lool Beh, a highly rated homestay with owners Jose and Ananda. We had a private room with ensuite in an annex in the garden, and had access to the kitchen and lots of seating areas, we felt very welcome and were able to make ourselves breakfast and sandwiches for day trips which was handy.

When we first arrived in Merida we weren’t so keen on the city. It was a Sunday afternoon and the streets were deserted… Plus on the walk from the bus station to the homestay we passed many abandoned and derelict houses and the whole area seemed run down… But with every day we stayed here, we saw a different side to the city, and during the week it really livened-up, with street dancing, festivals, fireworks and lots of character. We started to fall for Merida.

The first night we walked towards the main central square and then up to a vegan restaurant called Crush for an amazing Beyond burger 😋

We then headed back to the main square where there was some live music and lots of people dancing!! It was pretty cool!!

The next day we just chilled and explored the city, finding a lovely vegan place for brunch (Jajajana) and visiting the churches and exploring the colourful streets.

Dave said every street here looks like an album cover, and I agree! The different colours and the white stuccos over the windows and door, often a bit run down, with added character, and plenty of rusted beetles and muscle cars for added aesthetics! It’s pretty cool looking and was definitely more authentically mexican than it felt in Valladolid, with fewer souvenir shops and tourist restaurants.

One of the other reasons for staying here in Merida was to visit the nearby archaeological site of Uxmal, which is supposed to be one of the best Maya sites in the whole region.

We had a look at renting a car to get us there and back, but in the ended decided that the bus would be the cheapest and most convenient option. There are a few buses a day and we checked at the bus station with the tourist information stand. We were told that buses depart the Centro Historico Merida station at 6am, 8am and 9am, and return from Uxmal at 12:30pm, 3pm and 5pm.

So in an attempt to miss the midday sun, and any potential tour groups (which we imagined would arrive about 10 or 11am), we said let’s go at 6am (we might get there a little early but it’s ok) then come back at 12:30pm.

The bus there was fine, however we learned that these second class ADO buses (SUR bus) require a physical bus pass which you need to top up, then on the bus they deduct the value of the journey from the card. We asked the counter for a one-way ticket and they topped up our card 230 pesos, enough for 2 one-way trips at 111 pesos each. But it was only when we were sat on the bus did we consider what we should do for the return journey 😂 we were surprised the staff at the ticket counter didn’t tell us! But we asked the bus driver and he said you can always pay in cash when you board as well…

The journey to Uxmal was 1.5 hours but we checked the times for the return once again… Only 3 and 5pm!! No 12:30pm bus apparently… That meant we’d be here about 8 hours!!! It’s a good job we packed TWO chocolate spread sandwiches… 🤦🏻‍♀️

We decided to just enter and enjoy the park and figure out the return journey later. Things like this don’t usually phase me, or stress me out, as I know it will be Ok, we’d probably find a taxi or could ask a family or couple heading back to Merida by car if they have space to take us, I wasn’t worried at all… but Dave was a little stressed 😬 still we tried to enjoy the day. And we did…

Uxmal was amazing! We did arrive a little early and waited outside, but this meant we were the first people in the park, and got mostly interrupted views everywhere we went, save another eager couple.

This site is pretty big and has 2 pyramids, and lots of intact Maya writing and cool imagery. We particularly liked the palace of the governor, and the far side wall of the nunnery. The city is from 600-1000 AD mostly, although the late group of buildings were apparently built a little later than that, even after the city was starting to be abandoned!

We liked the palace of the governor as it was super intricate with 3D stone carvings, but also linked to Maya astronomy as it’s apparently aligned with Venus!

It wasn’t just the Maya ruins which were interesting to look at, there was also lots of wildlife too, including hundreds of iguanas sunning themselves on the rocks, bats and lots of birds, we saw some fancy looking woodpeckers with red heads, the tropical kingbird we saw in Valladolid a lot and to top it off, a beautiful motmot, which turned out to be the turquoise-browed mot mot, it was so pretty, with an orange belly and blue turquoise wings and a long tail which it kept flicking!

We loved Uxmal, and I definitely preferred it over Chichen Itza, which is cool, but is insanely busy, and all the footpaths and open spaces are full of souvenir shops and street sellers, it doesn’t feel like an archaeological park really, just a tourist trap. Whereas here had no street sellers inside the gates at all and was lovely and peaceful. We’re also glad we got here early, as it was very hot day and we would have probably baked alive had we been here any later in the day!

We left the park after about 3 hours and wandered about the car park looking for a taxi. There was a mototaxi which is like a tuktuk or auto rickshaw, a motorbike with a frame and a few seats, he offered to take us to the colectivo station in Muna for 200 pesos which we thought was a good price so accepted. Then from Muna we were able to get a colectivo (minivan) really easily for 45 pesos each, although we think it was supposed to be 30 each… Oh well, we’re still getting used to haggling haha

All in all, the return journey was actually really easy and only a couple of quid more than the bus was (and might have been less if we’d negotiated!).

Back in the town, we wandered around again, since we were dropped at Parque San Juan, so we explored this region and visited a little veggie coffee shop nearby.

On our last day, we did plan on visiting more cenotes, but decided instead to save some money since we’ve been quite over budget on a few days so far! We instead relaxed at the homestay enjoying the gardens and watching the birds in the trees, and I got a haircut at a nice little salon. And we just relaxed really.

We had a final evening exploring the central areas where there was a festival going on with fireworks and a stage set up. We are at Crush a final time then waited around for a bit by the stage, but nothing really happened… just people talking on the stage continuously, and in the end we were too tired to continue waiting for something exciting to happen, so we strolled back.

We really liked Merida and enjoyed just walking along the streets, the parks and squares, visiting the churches and interacting with the locals. We found Meridians(? – If it’s not that, it should be!) very friendly and the streets incredibly photogenic. Plus we LOVED Uxmal, probably overall the best Maya site I’ve been to so far.

Now we move on again towards the coast again, but this time, the gulf of Mexico rather than the Caribbean! Thanks for reading!