Yucatan, Merida, Chichen Itza, Mexico

Campeche was nice, really. I hung out there for several days. As usual, though, I know when it’s time to go, so on to Merida I went.

Normally, the guesthouses, hotels and hostels I stay at aren’t worth mentioning. I gotta say this hostel, Nomadas, in Merida is about as good as it gets. Except for the flimsy bunks that wobble every time your bunkmate moves, this place is outstanding. It’s 11 USD which is about right here in Mexico, but it’s got a big pool, comfortable hammocks and tables and chairs, a better than average breakfast, wifi and house flat screen computers, a good kitchen, air conditioning in the dorms plus your own fan, free cooking classes (20 pesos if you want to eat the food you made), free yoga, salsa lessons, live soft dinner music, a curfew they enforce, a good location, and it’s clean.

Here we are making tortillas with some kind of spinach-type chopped veggie I forgot the name of, which we fried up into chips to go with pureed pumpkin seed/tomato/chili dip. We had that with chicken fajitas. We used plastic bags to keep the uncooked tortillas from sticking to the tortilla presses.

I didn’t do the salsa lessons, or yoga. Merida is nice enough, especially for a big city, but I was content to chill out around here much of most days.

As for things to do, you can go to the museums, which are nice enough, look at the typically colorful buildings around the historical district or take in any number of cultural events. I don’t have much to say about that stuff. It was fine. One day I went to the beach in Progresso, maybe 25 km from there. It’s not photo-worthy. The best nearby attraction is the famous Chichen Itza Mayan ruins. They are quite nice, though there were even more vendors than Teotihuacan. Of course, these ruins are so popular because of their location in Yucatan, about equidistant from Merida and Cancun. Since Cancun is such a tourist mecca, zillions of people go there. Here are three pics I uploaded.

I have more, but ruins is where it’s at in this part of Mexico and I’m about ruined out myself. I was thinking of going down to Tikal in Guatemala and looping through there and back to Mexico, but maybe I’ll stay in Mexico. I don’t know.

I did finally go to a ballgame. Turns out Campeche has a team, the Campeche Hairy Pirates, but I didn’t know that then. They played the Yucatan (Merida) Lions. Here’s the big but decidedly minor league ballpark. Behind it is a little arena, about the size of the one in Stockton. The seats aren’t reserved, so I plunked down behind the plate, like you might at a Stockton Ports game, and watched some California League level of baseball. There were a few Americans on both teams.

That’s it for Yucatan. The other part of the Yucatan peninsula is Quintana Roo, where Cancun is. That’s coming up. For now, take care.