Where to Next?

Mario at the Monumento a la Patria

loooong pier

Weather – 28º, real feel 34º today was the hottest of this vacation

Steps – 7,544

Today we were back in Mexico for the 4^th time this vacation. Mérida is close to Cancun where we’ve been many times, but we’ve never been to Mérida, I would come back for
sure.

Mérida is an authentic Mexican city, pop 1.3 million. While Mérida relies heavily on tourism like other cities in the area (Cancun or Playa del Carmen) it is an old city, founded in 1542 (not like Cancun or Playa del Carmen.) There are huge colonial haciendas and the oldest cathedral in mainland America. Apparently, Mérida is the second safest city in North America (Ottawa is the first.)

cinco de mayo

tacos!!

We are actually docked in Progreso (pop 54,000), a port city with the longest dock in the world - 4 miles into the Gulf of Mexico! That means it would take over an hour to walk!! The sea is too shallow for ships to get any closer. Apparently, the plan is to dredge the sea to allow for
larger ships to get closer.

Our tour today is all about food and history. We start with a 40 min drive to Mérida. The whole journey there Mario, our guide, described what we’d be eating today and a bit about the history of the Mayans who have lived in the area since 2000BC. He was a terrific guide. Super knowledgeable and into the subject matter.

Mexico's history

Occasionally, guides will tell us off limits topics – usually politics. Today Mario’s non-go topics were politics and sports. He said he didn’t play sports, watch sports and knew nothing about sports – funny.

cathedral

Our first stop was at the Monumento a la Patria, or the monument to the homeland. The monument has over 300 carvings showing the history of Mexico. It was very hot, but Mario was interesting, so we didn’t mind the heat for a few minutes.

bustling square

Next, we visited a kind of food fair/hall – very authentic. At least it seemed authentic with plenty of Mexicans, not just us tourists. We were served 4 tacos – 1 cochinita pibil (pork), 1 pavo pibil (turkey), one lechon (pork) and another relleno negro (turkey) one. The relleno negro one has a sauce made from the ashes of burnt peppers. I’m not
entirely sure I have all of this right. They were all good, but I expected more flavour. There was hot sauce to add ourselves. I was afraid at first, but it was mostly flavour not heat. This was a lot of food! All of this was washed down with a Mexican Coke. I suppose the Mexican Coke was sweeter than our Coke, but if I didn’t know it was Mexican I wouldn’t have known the difference.

Next, we visited Mérida’s cathedral built between 1561 and 1598. We arrived just as noon mass was starting, so we only took a peek from the back. In addition to this cathedral being the oldest in the Americas it also has the largest indoor crucifix – 12 meters high.

cathedral

mural depicting the importance of corn

Then we crossed the street to visit Palacio de Gobierno Mérida, a government building with over 25 murals depicting important moments of the Yucatan's history. Mario stopped in front of 5 or so murals and told us the story depicted in those murals. This building also gave us a great view of Mérida’s main square.

Next, we were off for more tacos. This time, the 2 tacos were shrimp, again – these were good, but not super flavourful, washed down with a delicious margarita.

mamey

Our last stop was for Mexican ice cream, which I would describe more as sorbet – it was less creamy and more icy, it was tasty. I originally ordered tamarindo flavour, which I know I like, and Chris ordered mamey. Mario described mamey to us earlier as creamy and soft kind of like an avocado, with a flavor like a mix of sweet potato, pumpkin, honey. Guess who ended up eating most of the mamey?? It was good, and in reality, I should have ordered it and am glad between us we had one. I like to try new foods and

random interesting building

tastes which is what I thought I was sort of doing with the tamarindo. The margarita I had yesterday
in Cozumel was tamarind – I know I like that flavour…tart, citrusy, kind of limey. I didn’t really love the mamey, but I’m glad Chris got it (for me – he’s always thinking of me!!)

pilot finished with us

Anyway…this place was charming, filled with Mexicans, and had table service based off of a list on the wall. While we ate our ice creams, we chatted with Anastasia a worker from the ship‘s Destinations dept. She’s from Indonesia and has been with the ship for only 3 weeks!

Another interesting thing Mario mentioned was that Progreso/Mérida sees a