Our last couple of days in Merida passed at a pace suited to the city – relaxed! Iris and her parents did an excellent cooking course which I’m hoping will continue to pay dividends for years to come in the form of delicious meals of chicken pibil. I’m sure Iris would really enjoy doing a massage course too.
While Iris’s parents were off exploring ruins at Uxmal, we went with the kids to the surprisingly good zoo at Parque Centenario. There were quite an amazing number of large cats there, although it would probably be far better if they had fewer of them and increased the often depressingly small cage sizes. Good fun was had convincing the kids that they would need to become part of the zoo for a day to help pay for our travels and would need to sing and dance in a cage for the locals – I think Liam at least genuinely believed it, but funnily enough, wasn’t at all in favour of it…
Today we left the excellent Nomades hostal to travel across to Tulum, where we’ll be staying for the next week. We stopped off at the famous Chichen Itza ruins along the way. While impressive, it was very well touristed with dozens of bus loads of groups who were all observing the ruins from a distance since all of the monuments had recently been roped off to preserve them. The kids held out remarkably well in the heat, mostly due to the excitement of finding treasure all around the ruins which had somehow been missed by all of the archaeologists over the years.
After, we went to Cenote Dzitnup to cool off. It was a nice cavern with an ‘interesting’ artificial light display inside which made it feel a bit like a 70s disco hall. Still, it was good for the swim.
Hat shopping
partially formed chicken eggs
It looks a little more appetising after being cooked during the class that Iris and her parents went on – this is pollo pibil, one of my favourite Mexican dishes
Visit to parque centenario
These kittens were found a week ago abandoned next to the hostal
There was a lot to like about Nomades hostal; free cooking classes, salsa lessons, city tours and evening guitar sessions. Best of all was this12m pool. Liam surprised us all by swimming 17 lengths of it yesterday!
Chichen Itza
We finally found a way to keep the kids interested while visiting ruins – treasure hunt!! It worked a treat without a single complaint over two and a half hours.
Treasure!
Plotting our next move outside Chichen Itza over ice creams, which were bought with the spoils of the treasure hunt
We decided to visit Cenote Dzitnup near Valladoid
…Which had some very useful and practical advice for the tourist
