After two nights on the coast we headed inland to the colonial city and regional capital of Merida. Our visit was timed for the weekend, when Merida was celebrating its birthday with a festival of music and dance.
The first night featured folk dance and folk music in a pretty little park. We knew we weren’t in Spain because it started on time (at the early hour of 8 p.m.)! Dancers in colorful costumes did something that looked like a cross between square dancing, flamenco, and Irish step dancing, with lots of heel stomping and skirt twirling. They were followed by a young man crooning love songs and then a mariachi band.
It resembled the variety shows you see on Mexican TV stations in the United States, but made more fun by the fiesta atmosphere. The show attracted mainly local families out for a Saturday night rather than tourists. We also browsed a few artisans’ stalls, saw some fireworks, and ate ice cream.
The next day there was an all-day craft and food market in Merida’s main square, in the shadow of its 16th-century cathedral, colonial houses, and Belle Epoque government buildings. The plaza was filled with vendors selling traditional Mayan clothing, hammocks, hats, and toys, and yummy pork tacos for the equivalent of 40 cents each. Unfortunately, Chris ordered an agua (water) from a vendor and got a cup of super sweet milky coconut water (yuck!).
In the evening, when people had finished their marketing and the stifling heat had abated, the streets around the plaza were blocked off and turned into a giant dance floor. Couples young and old swayed to the music of the bands on stage, while children ran around chasing bubbles and balloons.
Long before the Spanish conquistadores arrived, Merida was a Mayan city. You still see many Mayan-looking faces around, such as on the old women selling goods on the street in colorfully embroidered dresses with big trays balanced on their heads.
Merida has a great anthropology museum with beautiful artifacts and lots of information about ancient Mayan civilization. We learned about the Maya’s complex numbering system and calendar, their extensive trading networks, rich mythology, and such quirky practices as voluntary blood-letting (a spiritual practice), pressing babies’ heads between boards to give them a flatter shape (for cosmetic reasons), and decorating their teeth by embedding bits of jade and gold in them.
Other than the heat, we’ve really enjoyed our time in Merida. Everyone we’ve met here, from taxi drivers to the owner of our hostel (the wonderful La Casa de Tio Dach) to people on the street has been friendly and talkative. For northern city dwellers, that sort of spontaneity takes some getting used to, but we’re getting there. The Spanish we learned last year in Spain is coming in handy; we’re struggling along pretty well.
