Yucatan adventure : Monday

Another fabulous day on the island, we put our swimming trunks on and headed down to the sea sometime near 9. A bit cold as we slowly walked in up to our waists before a short pause and then throwing ourselves into the water, which was of course actually quite warm! The pelicans swooped really close to us as did the cormorants and turns. We did a quick out to the buoy and back and splashed about a bit before deciding it was breakfast time, which we took at the wooden shack we had had lunch at yesterday, delicious fruits set us up for heading back to the mainland, such a shame to be leaving our little paradise behind.

We found our little car shortly after the boat deposited us at the quay side, the boat ride from the island scooting by very quick as we were buried in our books. First stop Pemex...it was to be a 4hr drive to Merida and we weren't exactly topped up!

We cruised through some pretty dense forest and a few villages with lots of dogs strewn about the roads, accompanied by loads of turkey vultures too. Soaz did a magnificent navigating us through some tricky and particularly unmarked roads to get us all the way to Izamal and the golden plaza. But first some lunch. Just opposite the convent we found a local hostelry which did us a super chicken baguette and chicken taco which really hit the spot, it had been a while since breaky it now being 3pm. We walked round the great st Antonio de Padua convent grounds first built in 1562 built on top of an ancient Mayan pyramid, and in the distance we saw a real mayan pyramid, hopefully many more to come over the next few days. The rain was never far and we decided to continue to Merida, only about an hour further.

We finally made it to Merida where the traffic was quite bad with one way streets and trucks parked everywhere. After a couple of turns around the blocks we finally found our hotel, hacienda Merida. Gorgeous hotel located very close to the town center, with a little pool shimmering blue in the dark and only 8 rooms. We cleaned up and decided it was time for an aperitif, Pina colada, and our man even brought us a little nibble to accompany it, very thoughtful. We had a little stroll towards the main square which was all lit up for two hundred years of Merida. We felt it was a very typical spanish colonial town with the central square being a large open plaza with archways all round and a church, lots of street vendors, and traffic chaos! We found a great spot for dinner, S trying the pollo de pibil, half a chicken wrapped in banana leaves marinaded in Mayan sauce, really tasty!