Isla Mujeres 2012 ~~ Day 21-24

Isla Mujeres 2012

Friday Mar.2

~~Day 21  “Off To Mérida We Go!”

Not a spectacular sunrise this morning but we have to be up early as we are off on an adventure!

Ferry ride, taxi to bus station and then on to a comfy ADO bus for a smooth 4-hour ride to Mérida.  Easy peasy.  Entering the city….

Instead of taking up a lot of time and space with Mérida posts, I will post links to the photo reports I posted on my blog.  If the links aren’t ‘clickable’, you will have to copy/paste.

When we went to Mérida in 2011, we arrived at a bus station.

We had a different route this time. It was like a scenic tour. This time we arrived in a different place….more like just a parking lot.  But it was easy to hail a taxi to our home for the next 3 nights, Casa Pocito….a beautiful historic home.   Here is a link to my blog where I posted about ‘Where We Stayed’…

http://doreese.blogspot.ca/2012/11/meridawhere-we-stayedcasa-pocito.html

Once we get settled, we make a beeline for one of our favourite cantinas on the way to centro.  We’re always an oddity here but it’s such a fun place!  There’s entertainment, cheap drinks and free botanas.  The more you drink, the more botanas they bring and the fancier/more traditional they get!

My blog post on ‘Bebidas y Botanas y Mérida’…

http://doreese.blogspot.ca/2012/10/botanas-y-bebidas-en-merida.html

My blog post on ‘Out and About in Mérida’…

http://doreese.blogspot.ca/2012/11/meridaout-and-about.html

My blog post on ‘The Churches of Mérida’…

http://doreese.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-churches-of-merida.html

My blog post on a visit to ‘The Market’…

http://doreese.blogspot.ca/2012/11/meridamarket-time.html

My blog post on another definite must do….’Paseo de Montejo’…

http://doreese.blogspot.ca/2012/11/meridapaseo-de-montejo.html

I heartily recommend a visit to Mérida….at least 2 or 3 days.  I also highly recommend where we stayed at Casa Pocito.   A little pricey, but reasonable if you share with another couple.  It’s a gorgeous home and a great location.  Take comfy shoes as you will do a lot of walking! 

Monday, Mar. 5

~~Day 24  “Back Home to Isladise”

We leave Mérida early Monday morning….

Just after 1 we are back on Isla…ahhh….feels good to be home!

Since it’s a bit cloudy and we’re not in a rush to get to the beach, let’s have lunch!  I can see Bally Hoo from here and pretty sure I can hear the fish tacos calling my name!

Nothing like great food with a great view…

Back home to our Casita Isladise.  It feels great to relax and just enjoy the sunset after a few busy days…

We had made reservations for tonight at Olivia’s before we went to Mérida.  Looking forward to a delicious dinner…

My usual…beef kebabs with rosemary potatoes….

And one of Vince’s favourites….chicken with olives…

Tomorrow….a quiet day at home…

Uxmal and the Jungle.....

During our Mérida visit we took a day tour to Uxmal.  I would have to say that this was probably one of the highlights of our many holidays to Mexico.  We used the service of William Lawson....

Lawson's Driving.....

William offers a 'private driver' service, taking you anywhere you want to go at the pace you want to go for a very reasonable hourly rate.  We hired William to take us to Uxmal with no set agenda.

Bright and early at 7am, William picked us up at Casa Pocito and whisked us away on our adventure.   And boy!  Was it an adventure!!  William, originally from BC, Canada, has lived in Mérida for 25 years and is very knowledgeable about the area and its history.

It was a beautiful sunny, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky kind of day.  It was going to be HOT!  On our way to Uxmal, William asked if we'd like to stop and see the view once we reached the top of a hill.  Yes, a hill!  There aren't many of them in the Yucatan, so we quickly agreed.

It's difficult to see in the photo, but you can actually see Uxmal in the distance.....it's that white spec in the top centre area.  Don't worry, there will be lots of photos of it to come!

We enjoyed the view and met an acquaintance of William's at the nearby curio shop.  Pedro is amazingly talented, extremely nice and very passionate about the history of the Mayan culture.  We did a bit of shopping.....some carved gourds...

We enjoyed the view of flora and fauna and then Pedro offered to take us on a bit of a walk to show us some of the many historical findings in the nearby jungle....

It's about 8:30am, getting a bit warm already and the sun is beating down, but hey, we're game for anything so off we go.  Little did we know that our little trek would turn into 3 hours of crawling and climbing through jungle and rocks and into dry cenotes.  Even though I think I nearly died along the way from heat exhaustion, it was amazing!!!!  In fact, Uxmal kind of paled in comparison to this adventure.  It turns out that we were the first guinea pigs, oops, I mean, tourists, to go on this 'tour'.  It wasn't even an official tour yet.  We are truly honoured that Pedro spent the time to show us his world and all the work that he had done to prepare the area for a 'tour'.  He is so proud of his culture and heritage.  Here are a few photos from our jungle trek....

'Air plants'

Pedro showing us the village of Muna in the distance...

It's hard to tell, but there is a very deep dry cenote that Pedro is pointing out to us.  The boys climbed down a ladder and explored....

Brian and Vince at the bottom of the cenote...

It really was an amazing adventure.  It was completely unplanned but it was the highlight of our day!
William wrote about our day here......  William Lawson's Blog.....our jungle adventure

And William now has this tour as an option for booking.....appropriately called the 'Indiana Jones Tour'!    William Lawson's Indiana Jones Tour

Saying a fond farewell to Pedro, we continued on our way to Uxmal.  We were on such a 'jungle high', that I'm not sure if anything could have impressed us, but yes, Uxmal did impress us.  Having seen both Chichen Itza and Tulum, I knew what to expect, but it was so much more.  For one thing, there were hardly any people there!  Such a nice change from the masses that frequent the other ruins.  And we were truly impressed with the site.  Majestic, yet simple.  If only we could snap our fingers and see what it actually looked like in its heyday.

The Ball Court

This is where I had my mini breakdown....I climbed up these steps no problem.  I didn't know we would have to go back down them.  I was hit with severe vertigo and just couldn't do it.  Brenda finally came up and helped me and I ended up going down backwards!  I'm such a wuss!

I thought this structure was amazing....looked more like something from Thailand or Cambodia....

Notice the vulture....he followed Vince and Brian as they climbed to the top of another pyramid....

We definitely enjoyed our visit to Uxmal.  It certainly makes you wonder.....how did they build these structures?

Feeling exhausted and exhilarated, we fall into William's car and relax for the drive back to Mérida.  William has one more surprise for us though.....stopping at an abandoned henequen plantation.  For more information on henequen.....  Henequen

There ends our day of adventure!  We can't thank William Lawson enough for this memorable highlight of our holiday!