December 3, 2018
Mirada, what a fun place!
Quirky, but fun!
Last night, after a lovely afternoon siesta, we were ready to head out and find some dinner. We walked over to the area near the Grand Plaza at it seemed to have a lot of restaurants listed there. However, as we approached, we found that there was so much happening in the plaza itself! Music played, people were dancing and there were so many booths selling everything and anything you could imagine. I am a sucker for the beautiful stitching you can find on clothing here, so my eye was caught time and time again - luckily I had prewarned Jim to keep me moving so as not to fill our bags further with clothing I would not be able to wear! Too bad!!
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We enjoyed our stroll through this festival like atmosphere and finally decided that we would give one of the many food stalls a try. I had been warned to look for a place with lots of people where the food was hot and we found just such a place. We both had tacos and they were scrumptious! At a grand total of 40 pesos, it was a bargain diner too!
Later, we wandered down one of the streets, thinking we would find a bar to enjoy a drink. We stopped to admire the Catrina statues at one shop which turned out to also be a restaurant. We were invited to come in for our night cap by the beautiful statue in the center of the restaurant and had to enjoy a second drink because of the live entertainment provided. Drinks and entertainment finished, we slowly found our way back to our hotel - only getting a little lost, but having a wonderful time doing so!
This morning we decided to sleep in and just do a walking tour of the streets we biked yesterday. We wanted to have more time to take pictures and not worry about the bikes. Before heading out, I tried to sort out why our Garmin did not seem to know where we were. When we purchased it last year, I thought we were told that it came with all the maps we would need for our travels. Turns out that's not quite the case - we can have most of the maps we need, but we have to buy the download online! Honestly, it's something I should have checked more thoroughly before we left Canada, so there you go - live and learn. Later in the day we managed to get the map of Mexico downloaded so we are good to go. We do have paper maps as backups, but were hoping to make good use of the Garmin, particularly when navigating in cities. We shall see if it is worth the cost!
Due to the Garmin issues, we didn't head out for our walk until 11:00, by which time it was hot, hot, hot outside - 33 degrees C! We did our best to stay on the shady side of the streets, but even so, the heat was draining. We spent a lot of time taking pictures of the amazing architecture here in the old part of Merida. It is fascinating to see so many beautiful old buildings unoccupied and crumbling. Some have been restored to their former glory and you can see that if you have time and money, Merida is a great place to find a mansion for probably not much. For us, its just nice to see. Neither of us has any desire to own anything as large as what we saw. Here are a few pics from our wandering today.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescentia_cujete
5 years ago
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctenosaura_similis
5 years ago
At the end of our time out, we stopped at Walmart (yep, good old Walmart, right there in downtown old Merida!) to stock up on emergency food as well as some appropriate decorations for the bikes.
Coming back, we again put on our swimsuits and jumped into the cooling pool before enjoying an afternoon siesta. For our last night here in Merida, we went back to a small Mexican restaurant where they featured more Mayan type foods. I can't remember the name of my dish - it was like a taco, but had some different spices and boy oh boy was it delicisous! Jim chose a kabob and when they brought it to the table, there was a whole procedure they did with two metal creamers heated over a flame. When they were at the appropriate temperature (just the pouring end was in the flame), the waiter poured tequilla into one, then moved it back and forth between the two, over the flame. The whole thing was on fire and was poured over the kabob flaming - pretty impressive! Jim very much enjoyed his tequilla flavoured kabob, as well as the beers we enjoyed, all while watching Monday Night Football - boy oh boy, do we know how to watch football now!!!
An enjoyable stroll back to our hotel (where we did not get lost this time) where we showered and packed our bags, ready for an early start tomorrow. Our destination is Tikul, about 70 km from here. Hopefully we can get there before the worst of the heat hits us - we'll see!
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