’23 Nov: Yucatan, Mexico

I’ve had such good experiences with AeroMexico that I’m happy to use them again and lucky dog me, an empty seat.

I decided to overnight in Mexico City so that I could arrive to meet Cynthia in Mérida in the middle of the day, and anyway I’d been wondering what those capsule hotels were like, so I did it. And it was an adventure! I’m not saying you need to do it, but you definitely Can do it should it be a convenient choice.

That person is not me, but how it looked, with bathrooms, showers, and lockers outside the sleeping area.

First I enjoyed dinner in a nice restaurant after which, a good night’s sleep.

In the morning I rolled out of bed, walked to my flight, and flew to Mérida. Cynthia picked me up at the airport. Before we made the 40 minute drive to our little village on the Gulf of Mexico called Chuburná, we decided to do an extensive grocery shopping in a really big Super Mercado that specializes in imported and gringo-familiar goods. We filled the cart with tasty treats including not only the hoped for turkey but also the unexpected but wonderful whole cranberry sauce. WOW.

Downside, the turkey was frozen but No Problem because OUR Yummy and Safely defrosted Thanksgiving is going to be on SUNDAY!

Here are a few pictures from the back of our vrbo but it got to raining hard so I went in. More pictures coming for sure!

We’re having a Thankful day too but not Thanksgiving yet because the turkey is still defrosting. It was the only turkey left in the biggest grocery store in Mérida, the capital city of Yucatan, where turkey is ‘a thing’. We didn’t discover until we got home that it’s smoked and already fully cooked!

Here are a couple more pictures of Kai relishing the sand in the back yard.

Early(ish) morning reflectos. I knew better and did it anyway. The bedrooms are air-conditioned, outside the bedrooms it has been hot and muggy so I had the camera in the oh-so-cool and dry atmosphere of the bedroom and took it straight outside. Bam, Fog. The camera lens fogged up like crazy and this was the only picture I could rescue.

Later, after the camera recovered, I went back outside again and who can resist a morning moon. Not me.

We have many coconut palms with plenty of coconuts. Watch out!

I had a super-fun time going to the local shops in this village of Chuburná. Which reminds me to make a map.

OK, back to the shops! We went to four places, I got to say a few things in Spanish, and everyone smiled and did their very best to understand me. Cynthia’s Spanish is excellent and she could always help me out. It was so fun, the shopkeepers didn’t need to speak English at all although I’m quite sure their English would have been better than my Spanish…

First we went to a little mini-mart where I realized how fun this was going to be. They didn’t have much in the area of fruits and vegetables so the guy there sent us to a fruits and veg place a few blocks away. Across the street from the fruits and veg place was another small store selling chicken feet (attached to the chicken – chicken feet are a special treat for Kai that you can buy dried out and oh boy does he love chicken feet). We were looking for more raw food disinfectant and the woman at the chicken feet place sent us around the corner to a pharmacy. Mission Accomplished!

The fruit place and the pharmacy.

Time to eat! We walked over to a nearby fish place and again, fun. Not as delicious as we might have hoped but fun nonetheless. The seating was really comfortable and the staff were lovely. And if you are eating there, you are welcome to use their pool!

All of this just came to the table. Yikes…

We asked for guacamole and got this. It was the best part of the meal. We also got a fish dish and a shrimp dish – a feast.

Later we took a nice nap and then cooked a dinner of pasta and meatballs and sauteed vegetables. It was delicious!

At a busy intersection in Progreso, this mural is pretty cool. Notice how they painted the power pole to fit in, and how, below, they added a top to the lighthouse, to match the actual lighthouse behind it.

We went to a bakery in Progreso, the largest town on this spit of land. Both the pecan tart and the tres leches cake were delicious. They also had a big, air-conditioned market where we picked up a few more things. Oh we are not going to go hungry.

We drove to the ‘other’ end. I call this picture Birds of a Feather. You can’t actually see the two flocks but you get the idea.

It was just Too Hot to walk out there where there might be turtles.

At this marina you could take a fishing tour or a ride through the mangroves for bird watching.

A block from our place.

We enjoyed the morning, took Kai for a swim, I read my book, it was lovely. Then around 2 we started making Thanksgiving Dinner! You can tell easily enough which plate is Cynthia’s (above) and which is mine (below).

From the front yard.

This was an adventure. No can opener here. Cynthia says every single canned good in Mexico has a pop-top but since this was imported “we” (she) had to improvise!

Veg for the salad, potatoes and gravy, Cynthia’s entirely homemade green bean casserole which includes a homemade cream of mushroom soup. It was delicious. It was all delicious!

We did a lot of tidying along the way. There was another small prep area by the sink on the right. It turned out perfectly that we didn’t have to cook the turkey since the oven’s max temperature was so low it could barely cook the green beans.

Dessert! Cookies from Mérida and pecan tart from the bakery in Progreso.

Kai enjoying the fan.

From this morning when, instead of my camera being fogged up, the day was fogged up.

1) We were on our way somewhere else and noticed a scattering of people dressed up for an occasion making their way down a dirt road to the beach. Let’s go see! So we parked and joined at the end of the line of people walking. Wow did we come across something great. Everyone was happy to chat, happy to let me take their picture, and happy to be there.

I’m going to ask Cynthia to type up what it says on this banner, telling about the events of today and tomorrow:

And now the whole group is off, walking to the church. At the far right you can see the altar that the guys are carrying, featured in the first picture.

We followed the band out, and back to our car.

.

2) And then we were off to our intended destination – Pig Beach.

Los Tres Cochinitos – The Three Little Pigs

From the beverage stand above Cynthia got one of her favorites, chamoyada. Tasty and refreshing!

Plenty of family friendly fun.

And yes there were pigs! There were a couple pens with an attendant permanently stationed to sweep up the poo and water down the pee. They let the pigs out for 30 minutes or so every few hours. The beach, made up almost entirely of small shells, was spotless. And except that we parked in a pay lot, it was free. But how was Pig Beach Progreso created?

FROM A SPANISH LANGUAGE WEBSITE: “The story of the Pig Beach pigs begins a little sad. They were found on an empty lot and rescued by the Progreso Ecological Police, who were unable to save their mother. The orphaned pigs were adopted by this police force, who took them one day to the beach and noticed that they enjoyed being there. From these visits, the idea arose of creating a tourist attraction that had an educational and environmental element.”

.

3) Our last stop was La Iglesia de San Ignacio where we enjoyed the company of this lovely couple. The man, who was closing up the church, showed us around instead and told us the history of the church and the nearby buildings.

The original floor.

We walked down to the pier to catch the big waves and the stormy sky. This family was out for a walk too.

Dinner!

Our front gate. They call the property Las Palomas.

The street outside the gate, very representative of this whole area except for along the main road.

The next block over. It is common here for construction to happen on a pay-as-you-go basis which we think might be why there appear to be so many abandoned projects. Decorations and style are always evident.

Waiting for phase 2?

Our place is outlined there in red. You can see C. 9 in the far lower right. It’s the only paved road on this part of the isthmus. Is it isthmus or some other name? I haven’t been able to figure it out. There’s a map back there on day two or you can just google Chaburná.

We were driving down the main road outside town leading from Chaburná to Chelem and noticed a couple dozen parked cars. What’s that? Let’s find out. Only open on Mondays, it was a place selling things to white people! In the last many days we saw two white people eating in a restaurant and that was it. And then this, they’re all here, more ex-pat than tourist it seemed. A few of the vendors were local but mostly not.

The tables in the back entirely populated by white people. Notice the woman in the moon-shaped highlight, the one with the two adorable dogs…

..here she is featuring her tattoo.

In the back there was also a coffee cart cut from an old VW bus. And there are so many white people patronizing this place they even have a flat white, the order of coffee that the guy in at the Mexico City airport told me they don’t have in Mexico.

We were on our way to the vets to pick up something for Kai. It was delightful there at the vets, Kai is perfectly fine btw, and then we came home to eat leftovers and me to look at pictures, Cynthia to work.

I got to swim in a cenote! Cynthia took the photos – that’s me treading water and me floating on my back trying to take a picture with my malfunctioning underwater camera. Ahhh, it was fantastic despite the camera hassle. The water is circulating from an underground reserve, not salty like the sea, not sulfuric like a hot spring, more like cool, fresh, and crazy-refreshing well water.

This cenote, as are many in Yucatan, is part of a cave. Others are open to the sky. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

.

We got to the cenote by taking a tour of the sisal operation at the Hacienda Sotuta de Peón. I enjoyed the tour and thought that we learned a lot about a not-so-long-ago time and of a huge once-essential industry now gone. The guide said many times “thank you for being here, we keep äll this alive for you, our tourists.”

How it works.

The House. So much information!

We got to the cenote on these donkey-drawn carts on the tracts previously used to move the raw materials, agave leaves, into the processing areas, and then took the finished products to trains bound for the coast and then out to the world. The mules rigging is made from the sisal processed here. They also sell bits and bobs, toys, washing pads, fans, decorative hangings, etc.

Our most dramatic guide who with great flourish told us the story in Spanish and English. Thanks for the photo Cynthia.

After the tour we ate there at the Hacienda, a four course meal of local foods served banquet style that was really quite tasty and the venue was exceptionally comfortable.

We got back just as it was getting dark, in time to pack up in readiness to leave in the morning for our 1,000+ mile Road Trip to Cholula.

(self-portrait)