Day 12 22.07.15
We arrived at about 07:00 in Merida, all very tired still and not to happy. All of us pulling faces we had breakfast as we were waiting for our rooms.
After breakfast I threw in some laundry. My god was that cheep. I had a small bag full of clothes cleaned for only 20 pesos, and for 10 pesos more, this was delivered directly to the hotel. What a bargain!
As the rooms were still not ready by then, we decided to walk around town a bit to explore the part of “the old houses”… We walked along to the Paseo de Montejo, which was a bit of a hike, especially when you are tired. The paseo disappointed us slightly, as there were about 3 old majestic houses and that was it along the way.
The actual road was embellished with 3 monuments dedicated to Señor Montejo the constructor of these houses and also the person who helped set up the town of Merida. It was so hot and we had walked all they way up to the second monument when we decided it was too hot and we were going to go back.
On our way back we found the highlight of the day – tandem bikes!!! We decided to rent two out for the hour and started cruising along this Paseo de Montejo. California Hotel kept running through my ears - “Cool wind in my hair”… Although the tandems weren’t the newest edition and I think on ours the back seat was really fixed onto the tandem we truly had a blast and couldn’t stop giggling because turning corners with these long bad boys is an art in itself.
After we had handed back the tandems we stopped for a small drink at a local market place. I would have loved to try the chochinita pibil (pulled pork) in a taco right there but I wasn’t hungry yet from my larger breakfast. I was hoping on having some of that later on for dinner. Instead we all got ourselves some well needed juices and then headed back to the hotel for some pool and down time. We even ordered ourselves some guacamole and lemonades to the pool – what a service :)
The majority of the group either went for a nap, or discovered some more of the town, but some of us met up an hour before dinner to go out for a small drink. We found the bar that a former traveller had mentioned to one of my fellow travellers – “La negrita”. What a great bar! Live music was playing, there were about 85 % locals inside the rest being tourists and it was just a great atmosphere. The singer was walking around the restaurant serenading pretty much all guests and with the fairy lights twinkling away and all it was just a great experience. We ordered some drink – some of us “Sangria” in litre jars, (could never compare to the Sangria you get in Spain but never mind) and others a Piña Colada and beer. Piña colada all they way :). I was starving at this point as the small, shared guacamole didn’t quite fill me up, so I was eager for dinner. We headed back to the hotel to meet with the rest of the group, knowing we would be back later on.
Dinner was great and was pretty much the food I have been waiting for the whole trip. It was fresh, with what I feel more diversity in the foods and flavours and just my cup of tea. At dinner I got myself “the flavours of Yucaten” which was an assortment of corn flavoured paste in tamales, a taco negro rellenado, a taco with pickled onions and cochinito pibil and another great taco with turkey meat, tomatoes and avocado which I cannot recall the name of – Heaven!!!
After dinner we moved on the placeta where unfortunately there wasn’t much going on. I used my free time to buy some post cards and then we headed back to the bar La Negrita. As this bar was going to close at 10:00 and we would only have about another 20 minutes, the majority of us decided to head back to the hotel and call it a night. Especially since tomorrow we will be having to leave the hotel at 08:30 including breakfast…
