Out for a walk this morning, OE showed sone of the sights he’s seen while running. Several old motorhome parked on side streets, occupied, one with Alberta plates.
And this little house where we bought a charcoal grilled chicken. Delicious!!
Enjoyed our last day, watching the sea, reading and walking on the beach, with the Sunday crowd – lots of locals as well as tourists. More beer than we’ve seen!
Faro Inclinado – the Leaning Lighthouse
This is probably our last post – unless something noteworthy happens on our way home.
An early morning beach walk – there a group of about 25 Mexicans of all ages singing and praying at the waters edge
… lots of people walking or running, doing yoga or Tai Chi, one fisher and many people raking or shovelling the sargassum. This is how the shoreline looks where no one is trying to control the seaweed
A grader dumping its load of sargassum
We finally set bod in the sea! All this seaweed has been off putting, but we decided it’s now or never. The water was warm. It’s Saturday- so the beach was pretty busy. We people watched for a while after our dip then headed back to our shady patio.
Miles of beach and not a break in the pile up of seaweed
We walked the beach this morning. The weather is warm, the sand fine and white without a shell in sight and the breeze is gentle but… the seaweed is a huge problem.
According to the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar), there are an estimated 26,342 tons of sargassum in the Mexican Caribbean waters, with about 200 tons expected to reach Quintana Roo’s coasts this week. The Semar report predicts that the seaweed will arrive at the following beaches: Akumal (38 tons), Punta Herrero (33 tons), Mahahual (38 tons), Cozumel (35 tons), and Playa del Carmen (64 tons)
We are just north of Playa del Carmen.
They are trying to clean it up with machines and shovels There are piles of it all along the beach
A long day of travel – up at 530am for a 5 hour bus ride to Playa del Carmen, then a 90 minute wait for the 30 minute bus ride to Puerto Morelos, then a $4 cab to our condo.
Th condo is not as fancy as we had expected, but will definitely do. This is the view from our ground level deck
After checking in, we walked back into the main part of town and bought groceries and water to last us 5 days here – with, as always, a few meals out. We have found that Mexico isn’t the deal it used to be. Both restaurant meals and groceries are now on par with Edmonton prices!
We spent a lovely evening on our balcony, drinking tequila and watching the full moon rise.
After our in-house washer/dryer combo took 90 minutes to do it’s job, we headed to the ADO (ah-day-oh) bus depot to ensure we have seats on the 6:30am bus tomorrow.
The line up for tickets was about 50 people long, so we figured out how to order online while in line. Hopefully our e-tickets get us on the right bus!
This could be a first for us … 6 days in this city and we haven’t set foot in any churches! The cathedral on the main square has been locked up most of the times we’ve passed by, as are the smaller churches in our neighbourhood.
We decided to go get a bit more cash before we made dinner. While OE was punching buttons on the ATM, we could hear live music somewhere nearby. We wandered into an alley and found a 7 piece jazz band – 6 old (?) men and a young girl – practicing “Stardust”. They seemed happy to entertain us and were delighted with our enthusiastic applause.
After too many days of 35C weather, we decide to go to the beach today (I know -your heart breaks for us!)
We take the Autoprogreso bus – a 1 hour ride to the Gulf coast for $4CDN return.
The beach is a long stretch of white sand that is virtually empty when we arrive. We walked along the brand new 1Km Malecón.
At the end there was a group of about 50 men and women shovelling and shifting sand to remove the garbage.
We walked back along the shore but didn’t go in past our ankles. The water is warm, but very murky. Impossible to see what you’re stepping on!
The worlds longest (6.5km) pier – where cruise ships and freighters dock – is at the other end of the Malecón. It was very busy with truck traffic loading and unloading cargo. There were no cruise ships today.
This public art was kinda cute – 3 people engrossed in their cellphones, ignoring the beautiful sea behind them! The cellphones light up at night.
We sat on the beach for while, enjoying the scenery and a faint breeze. After a mediocre burger at a beachside restaurant, we bussed back home to our little casita.
The streets are very quiet on a Sunday morning, but those people we do pass almost always greet us with a cheerful Buen dias!
On Sunday mornings, the city blocks off one direction of traffic in the Paseo Montejo and turn it into a bike route – Merida Biciruta. There are free and rental bikes available for one to 5 riders
The Olsonmobile!
There are plenty of street vendors, artists, trinket salesfolk, etc quietly displaying their wares in the shadow of some of Merida’s oldest, spectacular homes.
We stroll up be side and down the other. It is HOT!
We spend the rest of the day at home – reading, napping, enjoying our patio and pool.
This morning we Uber’d to the Mayan World Museum of Merida – about $8CDN for a 9km ride.
Spiffy building, but the museum part was all on the limestone main floor
The first stop is a temporary exhibit of 2 artists – Orlan, who “hybridizes” photos of herself with photos of ancient sculptures
OrlanA sculpture The mash up
And Demiàn Flores who blends pre-Columbian sculptures with modern figures
The rest of the museum, the permanent exhibit explains pre and post conquest lives of the Mayan people – with lots of signage in English.
Tapestry showing priests and midwives working holistically A clearer depiction of the winner losing his head, from Chichen ItzaAnd how it may have looked in colour The size of the hoop they had to get the 3kg ball through My horoscope according to the Mayan calendar And Owen’s
Once again a +35C afternoon, so we headed home to read our books by our pool.
I forgot yesterday – as we were walking from the bus to our hotel, two guys loading a heavy piece of medical equipment into a truck asked OE and another gringo for help 😃
My hero 😍
This morning we took a free walking tour of Merida. Our guide gave us 1.5 hours of rapid fire history in heavily accented English, but if you paid attention you learned a lot. Mostly that modern Merida is situated on the site of 5 large Mayan pyramids whose limestone blocks were “recycled” into the buildings around the main square, including the cathedral
And the Governor’s mansion
Once we were set free, we toured a museum in the former home of the Montejo family (a big deal family from 1540 to the 1980s). I found our new dining room table!
Table for 14
It is 37C at 3pm! Body temperature = ambient air temperature 🥵. I decided to take a dip, but had to skim the pool of a few leaves while I was in it!
After dinner we headed back to the Cento Historica and wandered around looking for markets. The streets are full of cars and scooters and the sidewalks teeming with people. Most of the market stalks were closed or would be soon, so we headed back to the square, where we were treated to a light show projected on the front of the cathedral with a narrated historical story. In the words of OE “it would have been better if we understood Spanish … or were stoned. “
Mexico! 