Merida

My parents came down for Christmas, and we decided to switch things up from our normal Cancun routine and go to Merida.  Merida is a colonial-turned-industrial city of one million people, about three hours west of Cancun.  It's the largest city in the Yucatan, and also one of the hottest places in Mexico, which is one of the reasons we decided to visit during December. The other reason we decided to visit is that Merida is about a 180 degree difference culturally from Cancun, and since my parents have been to Cancun many times, we wanted to see something else.  According to Wikipedia, Merida is the most indigenous large city in Mexico, with 60% of the population claiming Mayan roots.

We picked my parents up at the airport on December 21 and headed straight out to Merida.  We decided to rent a house instead of two hotel rooms, and picked a one-hundred-year-old house in the historic downtown.  Looking at my photos, although we took hundreds of photos in four days, we for some reason did not take many of the house.  Click here for some better shots of the house.

The first day we unpacked and got settled in, then wandered around a bit.  The second day we had breakfast, toured the main plaza and the House of Montejo.  (The Montejos brutally subdued the Mayan people in the 16th century, and later lent their name to practially everything in town including the local beer.)  We watched a folkloric dance, and bought some souvenirs.  Also, we also lost a few items, like Mom's sunglasses, and Dad (Mom found him in the balcony of a nearby historic theater, undoubtedly tapping on some wood while looking over the top of his glasses).  Adam is always a good sport with my family but sometimes I think he feels like he's herding cats.

The following day we drove out a half-hour to Dzibilchaltun (don't even try to pronounce it), a thousand-year-old Mayan site where archaeologists found seven creepy dolls buried in the main temple and promptly named it "The Temple of the Seven Dolls."  Besides the Mayan structures, there is also a ruined stone Catholic church and a beautiful cenote or sinkhole, which does not look beautiful in my photos below but it was, with amazing crystal clear water (also archaeologists found human bones in there; why do they have to ruin everything for us?).

Since we were already north of Merida we drove another 20 minutes to the beach town of Progreso, which features a four-mile-long cruise ship pier, and all the usual beach town slash cruise port amenities.  We drove back to Merida and had dinner at a contemporary Mexican restaurant in the historic Santa Lucia plaza a block away from the house.  Isaac also opened one of his Christmas presents a little early (thanks Aunt Beth)!

The next day, Christmas Eve, we headed back to Cancun.  Ike showed off his brand new "guayabera" shirt, a traditional Caribbean shirt made out of linen with lots of pockets to hold guavas as you pick them.  Looking sharp, thanks Grandma!