OMG, the heat. It is ridiculous. It drains your energy and strips you of any desire to do anything, see anything and generally move. But Merida is a nice town and thankfully we had a great air conditioned room to retreat to. The Lonely Planet raves about a restaurant called La Chaya Maya. It was also listed in loads of blogs as one of Merida's best restaurants- well, it's not. And if it is, then the food scene in Merida is decidedly average. We were super disappointed by the food and I will go as far as saying that it almost put me off tacos! We have come to realise that there are many different types of tacos, usually flour or corn based ones. And there is a particular type of corn taco that smells like a dead animal which is most off putting. Lonely Planet fail once again. Why haven't we learnt our lesson yet?! The quest for the perfect taco continues and I am yet to be impressed by this fabled delicious Mexican cuisine everyone keeps raving about. It all looks the same to me! We did stumble across Pola Gelato, a tiny and super trendy ice cream joint. Gelato has become one of our new things. We have started to seek it out wherever we are and we are becoming quite the seasoned experts! Real gelato puts the shade on ice-cream. Our night was revived on entering the deep and ever unfolding La Negrita, a pumping bar located on the corner of a fairly residential area. To my delight (and to Rob the budget-holder), it was two for one on the mojitos so with more glasses than hands, we decided to 'get on it', enjoyed the live music and the colourful people watching. Waking up to heavy rain, we pressed the snooze button and took it easy. 'Taking it easy' these days means lying in bed watching a series, The Handmaid's Tale has been keeping us more than occupied the past few days. Anyway, when we did emerge, it was to explore the Mercado Lucas de Galvez, Merida's main market. As an ever-evolving mass of commerce, its sells everything under the sun and is ridiculously hectic. Santa Lucia Park, billed as one of Mexico's most beautiful squares (really?!) is a pleasant place to while away an hour or so but full of touts trying to drag you into one of the surrounding restaurants. Apola incidentally looked lovely but was outside of our ever increasingly strict lunchtime budget. As a total sideline, Coqui Coqui is just around the corner and is not only the most dreamy perfumerie, it also has a private suite above it. If money was no option, this is where we would have been sleeping. It is the very meaning of #accommodationgoals. The budget did however stretch to the family style restaurant, Manjar Blanco which was was nice but again offered much of the same fare we had seen before during our time in the Yucatan, albeit slightly modernised. Our plan of wandering down Paseo de Montejo and eyeing up all the grand colonial style mansions was slightly ruined by the RIDICULOUS monsoon that decided to arrive just as we were ready to leave the sheltered confines of the resto. Of course, we had neither umbrella or waterproof, I was in silk shorts and Rob was in flip flops. Prepared as ever as we slipped and slopped our wet selves into the Rosas & Xoclate hotel. As one of Merida's finest boutique hotels and restaurants, as non-guests, we felt slightly cheeky setting up a drying off camp in their lounge area but less so once the bill for a coffee, tea and a slice of chocolate cake came! Yikes. Sorry Rob. The Central Cultural La Cupula is a must visit arts space. As a hub for contemporary art, performances, dance, art residencies and concerts, it is the fruition of seven years of planning and construction work by collector and president Leila Godet Voight. The unique domed building that forms the core of the complex, which also houses the home of Voight and her husband, was originally the stables for the nearby Palacio Canton on Paseo de Montejo (one of the many supersized mansions nearby). The domed portion of the expansive structure, now painted lavender and white, was probably a space for exercising horses. Alright for some!
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AuthorsRob & Charlie's travelling adventures on their long journey back to London after living in Hong Kong. Four continents, twelve countries, lots of experiences. Archives
July 2017
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Robert Ware & Charlotte Nunn |