Music at Playa Azul on Sunday in Tulum
Music at Playa Azul
Progreso and the Yucatán’s Other Coast
From Mérida, we took the short drive up to Progreso and then east through the string of sleepy little fishing towns along the Yucatán’s northernmost coast. Even though these Gulf of Mexico beaches can’t quite compare with the beauty of the Yucatán’s Caribbean beaches, they’re still quite pretty, and the area is much less developed.
My photos aren’t that great, but hopefully give you a sense of the look and vibe of the area.
Progreso is the biggest town on the coast, but it’s still pretty laid-back and tranquil
In Telchac
Cabañas at the new beach hotel in Telchac just opened by the owners of Hostal Zócalo
Coke sign which made me feel like I had been transported back to the 1950s
Hostal Zócalo in Mérida
I spent last week at Hostal Zócalo in Mérida. I love this place: the center-of-everything location, the elegant, old-world architecture, and the warm, casual atmosphere make it a real treat.
The hostel is located directly on the south side of the zócalo (central plaza), just to the right of the famous 400-year-old Casa de Montejo colonial palace. The entrance isn’t obvious until you get close; look for this sign..
Go past the Internet cafe on the first floor and up this grand staircase…
…to the reception area.
A family-owned and run business.
This is the pasillo, a gorgeous common area where hostel guests relax on big soft couches. In the morning the sun pours in those huge windows.
The pasillo from the kitchen end
The kitchen and dining area. Hostal Zócalo serves an awesome buffet breakfast every morning, included in the already reasonable price of your stay. There’s hot coffee, five different kinds of fresh tropical fruit, eggs, bakery whole-grain bread, cereal, milk, lots of sunshine, and conversation with people from all over the world.
View from the courtyard garden towards the pasillo
View through one of the big arched windows, showing the graffiti art on the courtyard wall
From the courtyard, looking into the kitchen
From the kitchen looking towards the courtyard. I’m in love with those arched windows.
The courtyard garden in the morning
From the hostel’s first floor, looking up through the courtyard at the kitchen and pasillo
The courtyard garden space was a good place for kids to do projects during the day, and for grownups to drink coffee in the morning in the sun, or wine at night under the stars
La dueña Trina and a little guest
Me and Trina
A Week in Mérida
I spent all of last week in Mérida, the largest city on the Yucatán peninsula. I had been there once before, just about a year ago, and wrote and posted photos of that visit in this blog, here (will open in a new browser window or tab). Worth checking out as well, since I tried not to photograph the same things this year.
I have three batches of photos from this trip to post here: (1) of the city itself, (2) of the amazing hostel where I stayed, and (3) of the coastal area north of Mérida around Progreso. I think I’ll make three separate posts; today’s will be the Mérida city photos.
In the classic Spanish colonial style, Mérida has a zócalo, a central plaza and park. On Sundays, the streets which frame the zócalo and the entire downtown area are closed to motor traffic, and people come out strolling and riding bikes everywhere.
The streets are lovely, with beautiful architecture. On this block, several artists were selling their work.
From inside the zócalo park, showing the Cathedral of San Idelfonso. Finished in 1598, it’s the oldest cathedral in the Americas! Sadly, the Spaniards built it, along with a number of other buildings, using stones from the Mayan temples that were here.
Taken from directly in front of Cathedral of San Idelfonso.
This building is right next to the cathedral; I liked the view through the arches, and liked catching this little family in front of it in their pedal-driven vehicle.
This building is on the zócalo and I thought the facade-sculpture was beautiful. (What is the architectural term?)
This is the front of Montejo House, right next door to Hostal Zócalo where I stayed. In my last year’s blog post I showed its images of Spanish conquistadors standing on the heads of dead Indians. This year we noticed lots of other weird stuff, like the figure of a woman towards the top right who appears to be in childbirth. (Again, I don’t know the architectural terms.)
Trina and I took a Sunday walk around downtown, checking out shops, cafes, and hotels. She got a passer-by to take this of us.
Monument to Maternidad (maternity)
A Mérida Burger King - different, isn’t it?
Side street cafe. Those big signs with the Corona sponsorship are promoting Mérida’s huge yearly Carnivale, which was about to begin a few days later.
The kind of spaces you see a lot of downtown Mérida.
The lobby of the Trinidad Hotel and Art Gallery
We drank coffee here, and as I always do in Mexico, I fell in love with the flow of indoor-outdoor spaces
Amate Books - an English book store! I bought as many books as my suitcase could hold. The streets were still closed to cars and full of bikes when I took this.
This building sure caught my eye - see the dome.
The interior courtyard of a hotel we scoped out. I am totally in love with Mexican courtyard gardens.
Still Sunday: a band was playing and lots of people were dancing. We ran into friends from Tulum dancing their afternoon away.
On Sunday the zócalo is filled with vendors of local artesan crafts and clothing.
The view from my desk
The view from my desk
My new plan with this blog, as I’ve mentioned before here, is to stop trying to knock everybody’s socks off with incredible travel photos of exotic places, and just let it be a web log of my real daily life. I know everybody likes pretty photos, and when I have them, you’ll get them. But I don’t always have them!
So today’s photo is just the view from my desk, a little Tulum still-life for you. I’ve been in bed with some kind of nasty flu for over a week, and this morning is really the first day I’ve felt something like normal and healthy. I feel contented and peaceful just to have work to do and a nice place to do it.