Merida …..Centro Historico and a day trip to the “Yellow Town”of Izamal

November 22nd to 27th, 2023

We have spent the last few days walking around Centro Historico visiting several sites and otherwise attending to administrative stuff and generally taking it easy, especially during the beastly hot & humid hours …

The folks here are generally quite friendly and when we are out and about we get lots of bienas dias/bienas tardes, so quite pleasant. It seems that on every street here in the Santiago barrio, there is renovation or improvements taking place….many places look nicely fixed up although there are quite a few waiting for gringos to buy and fix…lots of AIRBNBs or similar. There are about 11,000 ex-pats living in Merida ….you better love the heat if you are moving here, the middle of summer I suspect could be difficult.

I had a running shoe malfunction but found a small “hardware” store where a guy sold me a dixie cup of contact cement (which he poured from an industrial-sized drum) for 30 pesos and presto my runners were good to go!

Visited the Mercado Lucas de Galvez..

this is NOT the St. Lawrence Market, if you want to experience local, this is as local as it gets….they sell just about everything you can imagine in a wild jumble of goods, food, eateries, and people > all in a cacophonous atmosphere >>> sensory overload bigtime. We toured around the Mercado, which is huge, bought some limes, and headed for home as we were starting to overheat. Interesting but intense…we may come back as the produce did look good and was certainly inexpensive… 

 

After buying groceries a few days ago, the bagging lady gave us the “evil eye” as we were leaving….”baggers” do not get paid other than by clients who tip them, ok, didn’t make that mistake again.

November 25th

We left early for the bus station for the bus to Izamal  (it would have been easier to visit from Valladolid, but we ran short of time when we were there)…transportation information on the internet was a bit fuzzy and as it turned some of it was downright wrong. The first station we went to advised that no buses ran to Izamal but pointed us in the direction of the Noreste station, a few blocks away. As it was close to 09:00 we put the pedal to the metal and arrived at this station which sold us tickets for a 09:20 departure albeit on a different line, Oriente. Tickets for us both were 72 MXN (6 CAD)…excellent timing!

After a relatively comfortable 1-hour airconditioned ride we arrived in Izamal > known as the Yellow Town. Why yellow >>> well because most of the buildings are painted yellow, have been yellow for some 60 years, and in fact, only yellow is permitted in the downtown area… Anyway, it looks quite nice.

Izamal in Mayan times was a major city some 10 km square, little remains visible as many of the sites were levelled after the conquest of the Yucatan > one that remains is the Kinich Kak Moo, which is the third largest pre-Hispanic structure in Mexico.

Now the primary attraction other than the town itself is the Convento de San Antonio de Padua. Finished in 1561 and still functioning as a convent, the hill it was built atop is actually a Mayan pyramid that the Spanish conquistadors levelled into a terrace. The Convento has the largest closed atrium in America, and the second largest after St. Peter’s Square, in the Vatican. The site was visited by Pope John Paul II  as part of a Mexican tour in 1993…legend has it that was painted yellow in his honour as it was his favourite colour..but who knows…

A view from the terrace of the Convento following which we took a walk through the streets > some handicraft stores, stands, and several restos…

…we then visited the Kinich Kak Moo pyramid which means “macaw of fire, solar face”, where worship was rendered to this deity as a source of life. This building is the highest in Yucatan and, by its volume, the third most important in the country. Unfortunately, the Spaniards did a great job of destroying much of the architectural history of this area. Tourists are still allowed to climb to the top which affords a good overview of the Convento, Izamal, and the surrounding area:

After a light lunch at Los Portales in the town center and a last look around > the hats looked tempting……we headed back to the bus station:

In short order we found ourselves heading back to Merida…so far this bus stuff has been pretty efficient and simple to use. In a few stops it became standing room only…at one point an older fellow carrying a decent-sized wire basket full of packets of “totopos” and “papas fritas” boarded the bus and proceeded to make his way to the back selling his wares in a singsong voice > he made quite a few sales, to top it off he would offer to pour salsa into the packets, all as the bus drove on…quite a ballet!

November 26th and 27th, 2023

The next two days we did a little touristing but mostly dedicated ourselves to some planning, administrative stuff, and obtaining MXN cash. Quite a few places accept credit cards but you always have to be ready to pay in MXN pesos even at locations such as museums and the like. Interestingly our BNP card is part of an alliance with Scotiabank which does not have ATM fees for cash withdrawals which can add up over time.

Below the Iglesia La Mejorada, a large 17th-century church. The building just north of it was a monastery (el Convento de La Mejorada) until the late 19th century. 

We were suffering a bit from burger withdrawal so went to a TripAdvisor-recommended place called Flamantes > the burgers and fries were good but they could only offer soft drinks, oh well a “dry” evening. For whatever reason they were projecting silent cartoons on the wall….hmmm:

And so it goes…we were advised that a gas delivery was taking place that night…okay, so what …well it appears that due to the narrow streets, these deliveries are made at night and the tank is on the roof, ergo the “heads up”, so we wouldn’t freak out if we heard folks on our roof tonite !!!