Hats off to Sean (so long as they're not Panama hats - see below).
Merida is the cultural capital of the Yucatan. There are free cultural events all over the place, and tourists are made very welcome.
Well, almost too welcome.
We lost count of the number of times we were approached by men on the Plaza Grande, who were all friendly-chatty-practising-my-English.....and then,
"Oh, where are you going? To government cooperative artisan shop? Oh, I think it is closed because of the fiesta. Wait, I will even call them for you and make sure"
*phone call*
"Yes, they are closing. Is a pity, this is good store. But you can go to this store instead, just as good"
*takes our map, writes down address of alternative store*
Sean, bless him, is very trusting, but I was sceptical, and so I insisted we continue on to the original, supposedly closed, store. And guess what? It was open!!!!
It's a shame that people use the guise of friendliness to try to pimp their own cooperative. It was later explained to us that Mexican folks don't tend to view business from a long-term perspective. They just want to make an instant buck, ethics be damned.
But we did strike one or two genuine folks, one of whom gave us the best restaurant recommendation (perhaps on commission), and another who took one look at me and asked if I was Mayan.
"No, soy de Australiano".
"But you are Mayan-size!" (the Mayans were notoriously short).
Sean has called me "Mayan-size" ever since. But that's okay. The locals fell over laughing calling him "Blanco" ("white") and saying he had "red nose - like tomato!"
Another bloke, upon hearing that we didn't have children, recommended a marital hammock and a certain position in the "Maya-Sutra". We weren't sure whether he was drawing a long bow at our expense, until we found said publication in the bookstore at Uxmal.
And we lost count of the number of times people attempted to sell us a sisal hammock, or Sean a Panama hat.
Egad.
Anyway, Merida is a very beautiful city. On our first night, we had a wander around the Plaza Grande. On the way, we passed the Jesuit Church:
Then on the Plaza itself, we have the Cathedral
More views around the Plaza Grande:
Wandering around the Plaza, we were transfixed by the illuminated interior of the Palacio de Gobierno (housing the Executive Government Offices of the Yucatan). The armed guards on the doors assured us we were welcome to enter (gulp), so we went in and admired the murals painted by local artist Fernando Castro Pacheco. They were 25 years in the making and portray a symbolic history of the Maya and their interaction with the Spaniards. I love history lessons learned via art.
This panel of the jaguar represents night and darkness:
Sean in one of the galleries:
Back at our hotel, Casa del Balam, we had time for an evening swim.
Next morning, we joined a free walking tour. Our guide was great - he questioned a lot of the cliched beliefs about the Mayans, such as human sacrifices, saying that it may be that this was an attempt by the Spanish to defame the Mayans and their beliefs. He also pointed out that the indigenous people were made to build the Catholic cathedral, but on either side of the Christian motif over the front door, they sculpted a sun and a moon. The Catholic Spaniards thought the indigenous people were worshipping Christ, but they were secretly worshipping the sun and moon instead.
Our guide also pointed out Mayan carving in the bricks making up many of the Colonial churches and buildings. The Mayan buildings were razed and the Colonial structures built by recycling the Mayan materials.
These days, our guide said that Merida's folks did not perceive themselves as Spanish or Mayan. They were simply Yucatan.
Here is the Jesuit Church by day:
Our tour took us to the beautiful interior:
We returned to the Executive Government Offices, which is a pretty building both by night and by day:
I especially like this panel of the eagle and the serpent, reminiscent of the Mexican flag, which is red, gold and green, and featuring the eagle, representing good and justice, defeating the evil serpent. But there is also something of a double meaning: the serpent is revered in the Mayan religion and is not a figure of evil. Thus this panel could also hark to the Spanish defeat of the Mayans.
Our walking tour finishing in this building, where the wall frescoes and cartoons were done by a previous mayor of Merida, obviously a man of many talents!
Please find in this photo: hammocks in the windows, a Burger King sign (can't escape fast food).....and, next to the "Calle 59" sign ("calle" means "street") a little sign with a dog on it. In years gone by, Merida's streets were named using pictures, because many people couldn't read. I thought that was a lovely idea.
We returned briefly to our hotel room to find that our tip for the maid had apparently been favourably received. When we arrived yesterday, our towels were folded in the shape of a little doll. Today the ante had been upped: there was an alligator on the bed!
Back to the Plaza Grande, we toured Casa de Montejo. Francisco de Montejo (the younger - his Dad and cousin also did some major conquering) conquered Merida in 1542. The Montejo mansion was filled with beautiful period furniture and art.
Next we headed to the Museum of Contemporary Art. There was almost noone else there, and the curators jumped to open the doors to each successive gallery for us. Ironically, we saw an old series of photographs of the Australian coastline.
There was also a lot of abstract pieces. I loved this ceramic "flower" garden.
And I really enjoyed these pieces - the fat arms and legs reminded me of Sumo wrestlers!
We headed north up Merida's answer to the Champs Elysees: Paseo de Montejo: an attempt by Merida's 19th Century city planners to create a wide boulevard.
One of the stunning mansions:
Finally, we arrived at the Regional Anthropology Museum.
This museum was a fabulous treasure trove of the Yucatan Peninsula's history and houses many Mayan artefacts.
Did you know that the Mayans favoured the cosmetic practice of forehead-flattening, done to beautify babies. The results are somewhat confronting:
After gorging ourselves on Mayan culture, it was time to gorge on some traditional Yucatan fare. We got caught in a rainstorm returning from the Regional Museum of Anthropology, but headed undeterred to La Chaya, where I sampled a Mayan delicacy: Conchinta Pibal. The chicken (it can also be pork) is wrapped in banana leaves and cooked underground for a long time, until it is super-tender and the meat just dissolves in your mouth. YUM!!!!
This was our friendly waitress, who appreciated our efforts to speak bad Spanish. We loved La Chaya: there was even a lady on a little stool rolling tortillas.
To round off our day of culture, we headed to Santa Lucia Park, where there was a free evening show of music and traditional Mayan dancing. We ran into an American couple with whom we had done the walking tour that morning, and clambered into a seat in the stands in front of them.
The traditional dancing with the women wearing their beautiful embroidered dresses, or huipiles, was visually spectacular.
After the singing and dancing, a group of young ladies, who we can only assume were the finalists for "Miss Yucatan 2011" or similar, were presented to the audience. Beauty pageants are beauty pageants everywhere. The compere asking each of them one or two questions, to which they giggled, and, it can be safely assumed, gave the Yucatan equivalent of "I love my city".
The evening was wrapped up with yet another display of spinning and dancing while balancing a beer tray, beer and four tumblers on one's head. No tumblers were broken in this display.
The show ended at 9:30pm and we had another quick swim before turning in - we had a big day of driving and Mayan sights ahead of us!
Being Mayan sized is so much better than just being short...
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