Saturday 3rd November 2018, Mérida
After a very pleasant flight I arrived in Merida on wednesday noon and I met Diego in his house, who is very kind to host me through Couchsurf. Although he had a heavy cold he invited me join for a event that would be in the evening for ´Dia de Muertos´. After I went for some nice street food and bought some more artesanias (soon I can start my own shop out of my backback :D), I met with Diego in the center to get our faces painted and to meet one of his friends. The women who offered their face painting in the park were highly frequented and for the fitst time in 1,5 month I saw a lot of foreign tourists! Mérida reminds me a bit of Groningen, there are a lot of young people and a lot of culture and tourism as well. After we had our faces ready we went to see differet altars that people showed in the streets and in their houses. There was a really nice and peacful athmosphere despite the big amount of people in the street. Afterwards we met with some people from couchsurf who have a weekly reunion abut I was really tired so we went home in an Uber (which is used a lot in Mexico, but I still have to download the app).
Diego asked me if I wanted to go to the beach next day and of course I wanted! So the next morning we rented a car and went to Sisal, to a really nice virgin beach (we were the only people there). And I made made first experience with 3rd world traffic and roads as I was driving. Actually it was a lot of fun :D We spent the afternoon there with the Pelicans and some jumping fish of which one nearly jumped into my open mouth! I was also stung by a jellyfish but luckily it wasn´t more than a little irritated skin.
We had the car for another day and we decided to go to explore ´Cenotes´ (underground freshwater pools) in the nearby village of Homún. I didn´t really know what to rxpect, because everybody says you need to visit them and the pictures yiu find are just to good to be real so I was afraid it woud be a tourist trap. But when we arrived in th humble village and found a nice local (Mayan) guide with his shabby tricycle my doubts were already shrinking. And by entering the first Cenote I was completely stunned by the beauty and magic that lives in those places. I can´t really describe it and the pictures only give a glimpse of what nature offers there. The Cenotes were formed a few million years ago when the meteorite that extinct the dinosaures hit in the north of Yucatan. This left a semi-underground cave and riversystem which holds some incredibly clean and clear water. Overground a cenote can be located by a the Alamo tree whose giant roots dive deep into the caves to get to the water. The cenotes were a part of Mayan living and culture in in some of them artifacts are found. A few of the cenotes were (artificially) openend and are now open to the public. In Homun it is all very familiar and local, without tourist hype and with a lot of care for nature, which I really liked.
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| First Cenote- in the background the roots of the Alamo tree. |
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| Natural light |
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| This one was entirely underground and lighted with blue light |
Today I visited the World Maya museum in Merida and explored the city center a bit.
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