Merida, Mexico 2023

Ben and I celebrated our upcoming 10 year anniversary by taking a trip to Mexico. After doing a lot of research, we decided to visit Merida, the capital of the state of Yucatan. I wanted to visit some place with history and culture and Ben wanted some place warm with a beach.

I quickly found out that Merida is known for it's historic city center and beautiful colonial and beaux arts architecture. It's also known for it's regional Yucantanean cuisine and is a very walkable city. The Yucatan peninsula itself is filled with cenote's, or underground jungle pools and several Mayan ruins. Add all of that up with the fact that the beach was a quick, easy, and cheap 40 minute bus ride from the city center and we knew it was the perfect place for us!

Merida does have an international airport, so we were able to fly right into the city. I had read suggestions that you should schedule a private shuttle ahead of time as Uber's weren't allowed to come up to the airport pick up lane and taxi's aren't metered and could overcharge you. Our flight was an hour behind, and so by the time we landed, our shuttle had left. We had to get on the phone and ask them to come back out. With the language barrier happening, this was probably the most stressful part of our trip. After waiting around an hour, another shuttle did come and pick us up and drive us to our hotel. In the future though, I think I would just take a taxi and not deal with a shuttle.

BUT, we got to our hotel and quickly unpacked and headed downtown! We stayed at the Casa Garza Hotel/Hostel that was about 8 blocks from the city center. I forgot my camera back at the hotel so I don't have many photos from this first night. We immediately went to La Chaya Maya, which was highly recommended. There are two locations for La Chaya Maya, one is just La Chaya Maya and one is La Chaya Maya La Casona. I wish we had gone to the La Casona location, as it has a large outdoor courtyard and seemed to have a nicer vibe. The one we went to visually was not anything unique. It was packed with tables and people and was kind of a standard restaurant you'd see in the US. We did enjoy the food and drinks though! This was the first place I ordered an agua fresca chaya con pina. I ordered this drink several more times while we were in Merida and actually have started making it at home!

After dinner, we headed back to the Plaza Grande, or main square, and watched a lights and sounds show up on the cathedral. The visuals they showed were beautiful and they played some music with it as well. After that we decided to visit a couple of cantina's since it was Friday night. Our favorite cantina was Pipiripau. They had a massive courtyard with a tree and pretty lights. And the drinks were SO GOOD! They were sweet, but light, with lots of fresh fruit. We had a great time!

Our second day started with a free walking tour. It started at one of the smaller plazas and we actually only walked a few blocks total, but the tour was two hours long. It was great for learning more about the city and culture, but I wish we saw more sights during the tour. We visited Los Trompos for lunch on the recommendation of our tour guide. We both got a delicious cocktail and some tacos. The food and drink were great here but the vibe felt a little bit like an Applebees. We went back to the hotel for the afternoon to sit by the pool and read/relax in the hammocks.

We headed back to the Plaza area for dinner and drinks. We started at Museo de la Gastronomica Yucateca. This place was also highly recommended for their regional dishes. They had a beautiful courtyard that we sat in. We really enjoyed the dinner and drinks here as well! Afterwards, we walked through the museum part to learn more about the history of their regional food. After leaving MUGY we stopped into Casa Maya for a couple of cocktails. I know I keep saying it, but again these were so good. One of the cocktails we ordered had a popsicle and lots of fresh fruit. It was one of our favorite drinks on our trip! Then it was time to head back to the Plaza for a Pok ta Pok game in front of the cathedral. They do this every Saturday night. This was a game played by the Mayans that is somewhat similar to basketball, except players use their hips to hit the ball. There is a circular hoop in the middle of the court that they must get the ball through to score and each team stays on their own side of the court. They players made it look easy but it must have been incredibly difficult the way they would quickly drop to their hands to get low enough to hit the ball with their hips. Towards the end they also lit the ball on fire and then were able to use their hands. There was an announcer speaking throughout the game, but they spoke in Spanish so I'm sure there was a lot of additional information we missed. Regardless, it was very fun to watch!

Our third day started with biking on the Biciruta Merida. On Sundays, some of the roads are closed off so that people can bike a route through downtown. The route runs from Paseo de Montejo to Parque de La Ermita de Santa Isabel. We thought you could rent bikes at both ends of the route and Parque de La Ermita was closest to us so we walked there first. But it turns out they didn't have bike rentals there, so we basically walked the whole route to the beginning at Paseo de Montejo. We rented a tandem bike for an hour and started riding. This ended up being one of our favorite activities we did! It was such a fun way to see the city!

Once we finished biking we wanted to explore Paseo de Montejo some more. Many large, grand homes were built along this road and some of them are open for tours. We stopped in one to tour and since we were the only ones, we got a private tour! The house was lived in and owned by the same family up until a few years ago when it became open to the public. Because of that, there were very few changes and it was essentially the same as it was built. We were able to tour the main level and the basement level where the kitchen was (my favorite room!). The home was beautiful but it was also interesting to learn more about the wealth generated from the hennequin plant in the Yucatan.

After the tour we went to Rosas y Xocolate for brunch. This was also highly recommended. They had some jazz music playing and great vibes, but it was pricier compared to many other places. The food was great though! Later that day we also checked out the cathedral at the Plaza Grande. Then we toured an art gallery that overlooked the square at Palacio de Gobierno. This was recommended by the walking tour guide. The art was beautiful and also told the history of the native Mayans and the Spanish Colonization and their fight for freedom. The signs were in Spanish and English so we were able to read the full story and we really appreciated the art and history of the gallery. There was music and dancing in the square that night as well. We were pretty exhausted from the day though, so we watched for a bit before heading back to the hotel. It looked like people were having a great time! Our trip was off to a great start. I'll finish with a part 2 soon!