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I arrived in Merida around midday on the 20th. It is a small town, so having dropped my stuff off at the hostel, I decided to take a walk, spending the rest of the day exploring. Merida is a beautiful colonial town which has a busy central plaza and numerous smaller plazas dotted around. The main square was my first stop. This is dominated by the cathedral on one side and the city hall on the other. The walk to the square was interesting enough, through small cobbled streets lined with tiny colonial residential buldings and tiendas (shops). There was some sort of celebration going on in the town so I was able to sit and enjoy some traditional music/dance (whilst surfing the internet - they have fast, free wifi in all the squares here - not what I was expecting from Mexico!). Next, I walked to the other end of town, down the city's main street, Pasejo Montejo (named after a Spanish Conquistador that founded the town). This is a beautiful street, lined with small trees and what used to be the colonial homes of the town's millionaires but are now office buildings, restaurants or in one case, a Starbucks. The evening was quiet - I was tired after the early start and 4 1/2 hour bus journey from Cancun, so after chatting to a couple of people I went to bed (on the top bunk of a bed that didn't have a ladder - my efforts to get to the bunk were a long way from elegant, but luckily no one saw). Day two was all about sorting my life out - I headed to the dry cleaners with all my clothes and managed to upload all my photos from Cuba. With half a day left, I headed to Progreso, a beach town around 30 minutes north of Merida, with an Australian (Jack) I had met the night before. We strolled around the town (not a particularly interesting place) looking for a hole-in-the-wall food place. When we finally found one, they barely had any of the stuff on the menu and when I ate what they did have, it came far from hitting the spot. Unfortunately it wasn't really the day for the beach so we sat on the beach front and chatted for an hour or so with a local beer, and then came back to the hostel to relax in the evening. When I went to collect my laundry, it turned out the lady had forgotten to do it. I had only the clothes I was wearing as I had given her everything else. It meant I'd have to re-use until the next day, not ideal. A few of us headed to the main square where they have some sort of entertainment every day - we watched some traditional dance and then headed to a Bavarian beer house for a couple of drinks. I headed to Chichen Itza on Tuesday. This is a stunning set of ruins about 1:30mins from Merida. It is thought to have been one of the largest Mayan cities and is dominated by the temple of Kukulcan. This has an amazing acoustic feature whereby if you clap in front of the pyramid, the echo makes the sound of the Quetzal bird (a rare bird which I think is now only found in guatemala). The guide-led group I was with then headed to the Cenote Sagrado and the ball court which was used for a game played by the Mayan upper class. Finally we walked to the site's observatory - it seems that these haven't changed in design since the Mayan days as the domed structure of the Mayan version was easily recognisable as an observatory. Having had our fill of ruins, we headed out for a great buffet lunch and then to another cenote. I couldn't quite muster up the courage to swim in it, despite the availability of life vests, but it looked incredible and the numerous other tourists there were having a great time. Wednesday was all about finding somewhere to watch the Swans-Chelsea game. I finally found somewhere showing it having missed the first 20mins of the 1st half. My joy was to be short-lived though. At half time Real Madrid kicked off - at this point I learned how much the Mexicans love Spanish footy - the barman turned the channel over, I asked if he would be turning back to the Swans and he said no, because he wanted to watch Real. Excellent. I caught a bus to Playa very disappointed and not knowing the final score.
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