Merida - beautiful colonial city???

ColoniL building...
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bus ride to Merida was fairly uneventful, we ended up getting on an earlier bus than planned so we were in merida for about  2 o´clock. Dunc nearly got off the bus when it stopped in some little village on the way cos he thought he´d spotted a Blackburn top on a local.

Got the bus to let us off somewhere in Merida.. think they´d just stopped to swap drivers and we weren´t really supposed to get off their but we just mumbled some more Spanglish and they figured it was easier to give us our bags than try an communicate with us! Found the hotel and checked in, Dunc did a trump in the lift that sounded like the first note of the Jonny Briggs theme tune! (and was very relieved not to fill my pants this time!)

Asda Cafe for lunch!!!

more colonial stuff
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Went for a bit of a wander around and was a bit disappointed really. Guide book had built it up to be some sort of quaint architecturally interesting colonial city, but we didn´t think it was.

Ended up copping out and going to a fast food place (but it was a mexican fast food place and we still weren´t quite sure what we were ordering..... it was bloody good though!!!

early night an up and out early the next morning, for another wander. neither of us are very struck with merida at all, it´s maybe because we don´t speak much spanish. perhaps if we could speak and understand more spanish it would be more appealing, I guess a good way to see how the "real" mexico. But it´s all a bit too..... third world city for us. We wander out to the "nicer" part of town, but even that is a bit disapppointing... again could be that it´s heavy on museums and not much else or maybe we´re just a bit tired but Merida isn´t grabbing us. We end up in Asda cafe for lunch!!!! (well, WalMart) went to look for Elmore but he doesn´t live there!  (Vicky just wants a beach to lie on - strangely didnt have any in the middle of a big city!)

mayan monument and (horse and) cart
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In the evening we wandered out again and thought we were lost but came across some people setting up benches and chairs around a stage, so we sat at some tables put out by a hotel across the street for dinner and watched the mexican show in the square. That was quite cool, but made us easy targets for the girls walking round selling their "mayan" belts, scarves, bags etc.  NO GRACIAS is a very useful phrase!