Andre and Wendy: City Walking Tour

Time to get one last load of laundry in before we leave tomorrow. It will be nice to get home with all clean laundry. Most of our packing is done, much easier to pack for going home than for coming.

Today we do a free walking city tour that starts at 9:30. This is something we were going to do the first days we were here, but waited for Jacinthe and Lisa, then we never did it. So last day here we do the walking tour. It was very good, we would even do it again. Lots of the buildings we had already visited, but it was fun to hear the history.

New cultural center being built

An old blue bug van today

Staircase at the governors palace

Tourist police are here to help you

City Hall meeting room

Mural of first mixed race child, she was a Mayan princess

View from city hall second floor balcony

Was a slaughter house at one point and was only 1 floor. The things you learn on a walking tour

Our next stop, Casa Montego

Orignal pillars, they did not change the outside, but the inside was totally redone, they exposed this one pillar so you could see it

Marble steps from Italy were added in the late 1800 early 1900 when the area had lots of money from the henequen

Next the Cathedral where we learnt about the Popes visit

It's going to be a hot day when the horses have umbrellas

A stop at a park to learn about the park, a hotel and the first social club of Merida which is now a beautiful hotel

Stones from Mayan ruins were used to built the church. The city was built where there was 5 Mayan ruins.

After the walking tour we visited 2 more free museums that are in Centro.

We also needed to pick up our tequila to bring home. Once more to the big grocery store at the end of our street. Unfortunately no sales, but we now have 3 more bottles of tequila. Also picked up some muffins for the plane ride tomorrow.

Mango and Strawberry popsicle, homemade

another bug today

Getting fresh fruit delivery at our popsicle place

Sears is still open here

Back to the house and pool for one last afternoon. We make a valiant attempt to finish up the liquor, but were not successful. A few things left over for the cleaners.

Picked up some wings for lunch. They were delicious. Should have done this earlier

Bye Bye rum. $7 CDN for a liter and it was good

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3, enjoy mango margaritas.

We happened to catch Chris coming into the house, we were so glad to get to see him one more time before we left to say our goodbyes. Neil was supposed to come over to sort out electricity but had to stay home waiting for internet people. We sort this out by taking a picture of the meter, we owed 520 pesos for the month. We had been warned electricity was expensive here, I know we will be paying much more for our home electricity for the month and we aren’t even there!

In the binder at our house there are a number of restaurants recommended. Tonight we tried one of them that is not too far from our house, wow I wish we had tried it earlier, I am sure we would have been back. It was just a small Italian place run by a couple of younger guys. 3 sangria, 2 meals, split a dessert, $35 Cdn including a good tip. There was one other couple there at the same time as us that we spoke to . They come here about every 10 days for a meal. They have been coming to Merida for a few years now, they stay for 3 months in a hotel. We don’t think we could handle a hotel for that long.

Sangria and complimentary bruschetta's.

Delicious

4 tables in the courtyard and probably 4 more inside the restaurant

Tiramisu

Tonight there is a demonstration of the ball court game that the Mayans used to play outside the cathedral in the main square. There are so many people here to watch this. It is a rubber ball that 2 opposing teams try to get through a ring that is about 6 feet in the air, the real tricky bit is you can’t use your hands. It was really fun to watch, teams were made up of 4 men on each team. It looked really rough on your body, lots of falling on the ground to move the ball around. At the end of the game they lit another ball on fire and this they passed around with their hands and made baskets this way. A really entertaining evening that I am glad we went to see, again free. Not sure how historically accurate this was but it was fun to watch.