Day 14: Merida

January 17, 2018

Merida marks the furthest West we are planning to go on this exploration of Yucatan. From here we will jog north and look at the Gulf of Mexico at Progreso. Then we will head East, staying North of our previous track, and hit Tizimin, the flamingos at Rio Lagartos, the ruins at Ek Balam, maybe back for a peek at Valladolid, and then maybe another crack at circling Cozumel. It will be a full agenda for the second half of the tour!

The route so far (approximately). Can you spot Progreso, Rio Lagartos, Tzimin, coming up?

This is being written in the morning. Tune back in later today for the report on what we will see on a walk in the neighbourhood of this hotel, where generally we are just hanging out. I am looking forward to that walk, which will include a bakery across the street that has Tiramisu!

Afternoon now. Well Merida has won my heart, and it used some pretty traditional methods. It began with 15 peso reasonable quality pizza down the way, and tiramisu in the bakery across the street. The bakery did not rest with the tiramisu, but had walnut paste buns and lots of other good stuff.

Our actual tour began with the Casa de Montejo, which is a house from 1540 built by a very powerful local family. It was rescued and restored by the bank Banamex, which today has a large branch in the back. It's free to tour the restored house, which has very lovely furniture and decoration.

Conquistador standing on Mayans - a cheeky Spanish carving.

If you can read this, it tells the story of the Mantejo house.

Looking out at the main square of Merida

In some of the rooms was also an exposition by a modern day clothing artist, Beatriz Russek. Dodie says the designs are airy and good for this climate.

There was also a photo exposition from someone who toured Yucatan in 1946, and a gift shop with other artistic stuff. Bill Shanyfelt, I bet you can not identify the fanciful animals!

The central square of Merida is large and leafy, and surrounded by two churches, the governor's palace, and the Casa de Montejo that we just visited.

Usually the brightly coloured embroidery is carried in the streets by little old ladies. These young girls must be in training.

The square features these courting seats, where you can commune without touching

We were strolling around the square, particularly looking at the locked doors of the church. A man came up to us and explained that the church only opens at 4 and there is a service at 5. From there he casually asked about where we were from, and struck up a pleasant conversation, telling us that he was from the village of Holacho, where weaving of sisal is done in caves, to take advantage of the moisture that softens the fibres. He went on to talk about the quality of the handicrafts from his region and village, and advised us that if we were to buy any crafts to avoid the streets or miscellaneous shops. Rather, he said, there is a Mayan co=op, and he told us where to find to find it. After that, he said bye and left us. It may have been a sales pitch, but it was a very soft one. He gave us good and true information (we later found a write up on his village in a guide book) and left us to it.

We did wander over to the building he had mentioned - the blue one, and we went to the shop he had mentioned -at the centre door of the building and upstairs. The stuff on display really was pleasing, and the man in charge there also had the soft approach. He showed us the stuff, and explained about the different qualities, but did not push. Consequently we did buy something, after a very gentle discussion of price. During this discussion the price did move from 600 to 400 pesos.

One thing we did look at was sisal hats. But the cheapest quality of these was 1800 pesos. That $126, too rich for our blood. The man could see that an again did not push at all. Still it did not prevent him from explaining about how they were made and what the various quality levels were, plus trying some on us.

Super bright colours of Mayan handicrafts

How about this blanket for rainbow hues.

This looks way better than Dodie's goofy pink hat thing. Oh well.

Back on the square, we turned the tables in terms of accosting people as we happened to track down the original man that had steered us to the craft shop. He was sitting in a cafe, and we went over and thanked him for the advice. Next year we will see about cycling through his village. My suggestion that we could stay with him did not seem to earn much traction with him, or with Dodie!

Our next stop was a traditional candy shop. Yucatan candy is based on fruit purees, seeds, nuts, and honey, with chocolate being only a bit player. We selected a bunch of stuff, telling ourselves it would be good for on the road tomorrow. As it happens when we got back to our room, we found it quite addictive and gobbled it up. Oh well.

Not content with the candy stop, us kids then went directly to the ice cream shop. Here too, the product was not what we are used to. There were 14 flavours, many of them recognizable, but many not. We were after milkshakes, but the versions here ("champolas") while close, lacked the "shake". The were more like floats. I chose chocolate, which was good, with a hint of cinnamon. Braver Dodie chose guanabana. That's soursop, a flavour well known to our two girls Joni and Laurie. Together we like saying "guanabana". Both champolas were really good, suitably creamy and refreshing. Interestingly we were seated outside and behind a wall with our shakes. When we were done I had to go in and scare up somebody to give our 90 pesos to.

Shakes. Actually Dodie was right on with the Guanabana. This is the traditional original flavour. One internet recipe site says: "ICE CREAM "FLOAT" THROUGHOUT THE CARIBBEAN – from Cuba to Puerto Rico – the Champola is something like a fruit-and-milk "smoothie" employing milk, sugar and the ambrosial tropical fruit guanábana, known in English as "soursop." In Yucatán, the recipe was streamlined at least 60 years ago. In a Yucatecan vocabulary book by Jesús Amaro Gamboa, and published by UADY (Autonomous University of Yucatán), the Champola, as it is commonly consumed in the peninsula and popularized by such beloved institutions as Sorbetería Colón, is nothing more than a tall glass of ice cold milk with a scoop of your favorite ice cream or sorbet on top – the traditional flavor still being guanábana. However, a rainbow of possibilities has opened in recent years, and nowadays it is just as common to use the delicious almond beverage Horchata (our favorite) instead of milk, and anything from strawberry or chocolate ice cream, to mamey or limón sorbet as the topping. Advice to our students: Experiment!"

Another stop was the governor's palace. The main feature here was a series of large murals. They were rather indistinctly painted, but with the help of some plaques we could see their theme was the Spanish conquest of the Maya and the Mayan subsequent suffering. These were all framed in a sympathetic way toward the Maya. That tells me that despite the Mayan defeat in the Caste Wars, times have changed and they have gained a position of respect in the modern society.

At the governor's palace, a mural with a Maya sympathetic governor from around 1900.

Dodie's knees were complaining that all this walking was not much of a day off, so we stashed her back at the hotel. I charged off for a look at the churches. Only one was open, and inside was fairly plain. For example, no stained glass. But there was one statue of an obscure saint that was attractively decorated with coloured ribbons. People were gathering for a service. That would have been interesting - something to compare to Spain - but I had another mission.

My mission was to retrieve some fast food. Pizza certainly could be in there, but we had also spotted a shop selling "hojaldras" and "volovanes". I think I got volovanes. They could loosely be described as stuffed puff pastry. The closest thing to it we have at home is maybe a sausage roll. We got ham and cheese, and mushroom. They were declared "not bad"!

Although we were pretty pleased to land such a cheap hotel room right in the middle of downtown, after two days we have found its humid windowless atmosphere rather wearing. Tomorrow we will bust out into the glorious (burning) sun and return to our village life. No more ice cream shops, less candy, no tiramisu, but we will be on the beach. It should be ok.

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Joni MillerAre you serious about glorious burning sun?! In Belize it is freezing rain and wind! 19 C. Ok, I guess compared to Montreal that still seems tropical but brrr.
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6 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Joni MillerOk, I lied. Today it was more like 26. And by the Gulf tonight there was a vicious sea breeze. Our waiter was freezing, so I had to pull open my jacket and pretend to fan myself. But as soon as we got back to our room I put on my wool hoodie!
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6 years ago