Merida (day 2)

Saturday December 20…10:45pm

We left the RV park at 8am in order to get the tire replaced. Along the way, we dropped off a large load of laundry at the lavanderia.
They don’t seem to have many actual laudramats, however there are a lot of these laundry places where you drop off your clothes and they charge you by the kilogram. This particular place charges 8 pesos ($0.76 CAN, $0.61 US) per kilogram, and we had a lot of laundry. The total bill came to 120 pesos ($11.40 CAN, $9.12 US) washed, dried, and folded, which we thought was very cheap. Last time we did any laundry, Ruth did it by hand…now she gets to pay someone to do it for her!

We made it to the tire shop, which was a proper Goodyear center, as you would see in US or Canada, except that the garage area has no walls…only a roof. The tire sizes are different here in Mexico, and it turned out that the tire they showed in stock was a nylon tire that required an inner tube and would definitely not work for us. So we went to plan B, which was to put one of the front tires on the rear where the bad tire was, and put our spare tire (which was not on a rim) on the front. Two guys worked for about an hour to do this job, and it cost 115 pesos ($10.93 CAN, $8.75 US)! We had read where vehicle and mechanical repairs are very cheap in Mexico, and this is a good example.

Our bad tire!

We went back to the RV park where we decided to stay one more night. S&G had already left for downtown, so Ruth and I relaxed for the afternoon. We had arranged to meet them at a spot downtown at 6pm.

At around 4:30pm we left Whiskey in the motorhome and took a bus from the shopping mall next door. The local bus costs 5 pesos ($0.47 CAN, $0.38 US), and it goes down to 3 pesos if you are a student, or over 60 years old. It was a 20 minute bus ride to downtown, and it sure was nice for me to have someone else do the driving for a change!

Looking down one of the main streets. The couple on the left have a nice spot in that restaurant!

Inside one of the government buildings

The cathedral in Merida. How did they build places like this in the 1500's?

Merida has a lot of free entertainment going on in the weeks leading up to Christmas. They have a stage set up in the main square and we saw various bands playing at other locations as well. We met S&G at the spot by the cathedral, and waited there until a couchsurfing contact showed up who Glen had arranged to meet. Ignatio lives in Merida and he was interesting to talk with. We went to a local bar and sat for a drink with him. Afterwards, he took us to a local eatery where we had a very good meal for 110 pesos ($10.45 CAN, $8.36 US) for the 2 of us.

Girls dressed in mayan costumes

Having a drink with our couchsurfing friend, Ignatio

Ignatio drove us back to the RV park where we sat out with Dean and Pinar, a couple from Texas who we met at the RV lot at Uxmal who are now staying here as well.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…423

December Fuel $275.50 CAN

December Grocery $208.84 CAN

December Overnight costs $ 94.45 CAN