Merida

We stayed at the Dolores Alba hotel. This is the same hotel we stayed in last year when Bob and Lynn went with us. It’s located about 4 or 5 blocks from the zocolo (main square). It originally was a Spanish Colonial mansion that has been converted to a hotel with rooms added on in the “new” section. It’s clean and reasonably price.  Lots of different languages being spoken in the courtyard where we had breakfast, wrote in our diary and accessed the internet.  The hotel is a real surprise because the surrounding area is definitely not the best part of town.   The walk to the square is past the local city bus stop with a constant stream of  loud, noisy, smelly and aggressive buses.

It was absolute heaven to cool off in this wonderful pool.

Breakfast time in the courtyard.

Lots of places to sit and rock for awhile.

Of course, we went shopping in Merida. First to our shirt and hammock guy, Estaquio. Ed bought a panama shirt and a matrimonial hammock made of sisal. Like last year, Peggy tried on lots of tops but never found one that she liked.

We went to the Central Market, a short walk from the hotel. The market again amazed us with hundreds of stalls selling everything from clothes, to jewelry, to fruits, vegetable and meats, to watch repair  to pots and pans, to tools, and on and on! About anything and everything you can imagine. The locally grown fruits and vegetables were both gorgeous and delicious. We bought a few presents for grandkids. Nothing for kids! Peggy bought some tops and a panama hat to shade her from the sun, as it was hot, hot!

We took the photos below from Google Images.  We were way too busy gawking to take many photos.

Really, there is everything at this never ending market.  Really!

One of hundreds of vendors selling flowers.

Peggy was mesmorized by these bugs that had jewelry on their backs.  No pins needed to wear a broach.

We ate two dinners at La Chaya Maya restaurant. We were told of it by friends who went to Merida a week before us. Great food served with corn tortillas made by Mayan women sitting in the restaurant.  The first night we ate there, we didn’t realize it was on the other side of the Carnaval parade route from our hotel. After dinner, we couldn’t walk directly back to the hotel as the police wouldn’t let us cross the route. The entire parade route we were told was 3 miles long.  So we had to walk many blocks south to the end of the route, then over, and finally back up to the hotel. Took us probably 1 1/2 hours! Worked off our dinner and were hungry by the time we got back! Not really. But, we were thirsty and consumed a beer or two!