Merida, Progresso and Uxmal

Hotel Marionettas

Merida was a much bigger town than Valladolid, and again the streets here were numbered so my navigational skills were becoming something to boast about. Hotel Marionettas was our home for the next three nights and was a little oasis behind the bustling streets. Our room was right next to the courtyard pool and we wasted no time and jumped straight in, drinking cerveza and wine while we dried off.



Yard of cerveza

Walking into Merida past endless shops blaring out Mexican music, we hopped into the first bar we found to escape the crowds of shoppers. When Richard ordered a large cerveza and a yard of beer appeared, it seemed that we had stumbled into some kind of a tourist fun pub. We looked at the group of Germans on the table behind us and saw the barmen putting huge someros on them and giving them a pretend shotgun to pose for a photo with. Even I was surprised at how quickly Richard drank that yard of beer.



Chillis in Merida market

The next morning we strolled through Merida market. There were lane after lane of clustered stalls, some with mountains of chillis. A friend had recently given us a bag of home grown chillis, so we took plenty of pictures to illustate what we expected the size of our next delivery to be. We probably only covered a third of the market, the crammed lanes seemed to go on for miles, but it was definitely ' hold-onto-my-hangbag-like-my-mum-does' territory.



In the afternoon we drove to the Dzibitchaltun ruins. We were the only people there making them a tranquil but eerie place to visit. At Equinox the sun is perfectly aligned with the doorway on top of the main structure. Hippies love it.



Dzibitchaltun

Another hour up the road, and we arrived in Progresso. This was the first beach we'd seen of the holiday, so I set about singing the 'I see the sea' song of circa 1989 family trips to Bantham beach. We spent the afternoon sunbathing on the beach, unable to move much after another lunch of far too many tortillas.

Progresso beach



Temple of Turtles





Uxmal

The next day we travelled to Uxmal - another biggie. With a jungle setting and huge pyramid, these were our favourite so far. There was also a Temple of Turtles, so I made Richard go over and offer his apologies for the unfortunate turtle we'd popped. We made our way across a rubbled path and came to Indiana Jones land where everything was covered in skull and cross boned carvings. The Doctor never appeared, so we walked along to see the stone phalluses which unfortunately looked like an enlarged version of the clay toadstool village I'd made in primary school.

Stone phalluses/toadstool village

Happy hour margaritas



Happy hour margaritas

By now it was clear that we were both allergic to bug repellent, so the evening started with the usual bout of sneezing. We found a bar/restaurant that had a happy hour with two for one drinks. To take advantage of the drinks offer we decided to stay for food as well. What we failed to notice was the number of westerners and Americans in the restaurant too, and so, the evening ended with the waiter bringing over a sombero and gun for us to pose with while he took our pictures.

Typical tourist in Mexico