Merida (day 3)

Sunday December 21…11:00pm

We left the RV Park at around 9:30am and went to park in the convention center parking lot. The woman at the RV park never did come to collect the rent. There is never anybody here and the place is not well maintained. I do not feel guilty getting a night for free.

From the convention center, we took the bus downtown again. This time, we took Whiskey with us. It was funny to have her sitting on my lap looking out the window. When we got downtown, we didn’t see anybody else with a dog, and because Whiskey looks so mch different than your typical mexican dog, everybody stares at her and the children point and smile. Mexican dogs are almost always very short haired, whereas Whiskey’s fur is long. Merida is a little different in that there are very few stray dogs running around, compared to anywhere else we’ve been in Mexico. We’re not sure why that is.

On Sundays, a few of the streets downtown around the center square are closed to traffic. So it was nice to have lots of walking space because the sidewalks are very narrow. There were stages set in various spots and bands playing and people dancing. It was nice to watch for a little while.

Downtown Merida

They close some of the streets to cars on Sunday

A street festival for children

We took the bus back to our motorhome Sherman, and drove northeast towards the small city of Motul. We had found a spot online where you can park your RV at a nature preserve for free, overnight. We were going to check it out, and if it was nice, Steve and Glen and Dean and Pinar would follow tomorrow morning. From their website, it looked really nice. www.komchen.org I had received an email from the lady who supposedly runs the place that we were okay to park there.

We found the entranceway, and their sign was half overgrown with weeds. The gate was half closed, so I got out and opened it. The “road” in was just a two lane path, but we drove in assuming that since we were told motorhomes were allowed in to park for free, there must be space for one to do so. But, this is Mexico. We could only go so far and then the overgrowth and tree branches stopped us from going further. We got out and walked the rest. We found that maybe 4 or 5 years ago, someone had a great idea about this nature preserve and you can tell by their website that it looked quite nice. But I think after the first year they must have just given up. We still can’t figure out how someone could get back to us by email telling us to come there. The small bungalows hadn’t been slept in for a LONG time, and the whole place was generally not kept up at all. We saw a motorcycle at the main house, and it was obvious that someone was living there, but there was nobody around.

So we backed out, and headed north towards the coast road that goes back to Progresso, and then south and back to Merida. The whole trip was a waste, except that we did get to see the pink flamingoes that inhabit the swampy area near the coast. We don’t think we’ve ever seen flamigoes in the wild. They sure are strange looking birds.

Pink Flamingos

And so we are back at the RV park for one more night. Hopefully this one will be free as well! Tomorrow we will head for the ruins at Chitzen Itza. A few km’s after that, there is supposed to be a new RV park near the city of Valladolid, but we’re not counting on it. A lot of the info we find online and in books just doesn’t seem to be accurate.

We met the other couple who are here. Steven and Paula are originally from Britain, but spent the last 8 years in British Columbia. They have bought a house near Merida, and are staying in the RV park while some renovations are being done at the house. They came over to S&G’s tonight, and taught us a new card game.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…424

December Fuel $275.50 CAN

December Grocery $208.84 CAN

December Overnight costs $ 94.45 CAN