Merida, Mexico

We´ve made it to Mexico! We arrived in Merida last Thursday and spent a few nights in Merida getting acclimated and putting our bikes together. Surprisingly (or maybe not so much so), it took us a couple of days to put everything back together and smooth out all the things we didn´t think to do in the states. Merida is a really cool city. Every weekend there are activities going on in the center of town and they close a couple of streets for the festivities. We went to a free Mexican pop concert, walked around in awe looking at the OLD historical buildings, watched some traditional Yucatecan dances, and we scouted a route on our bikes that we would take out of Merida. Lots of backtracking and going the wrong way down one way streets, but we figured it out, without a map nonetheless. We discovered just how big Merida is and that the city limits extend WAY beyond the historical center we had been walking around quite a bit.

We left Merida on Sunday morning for our next stop, Tixkokob (pronounced Teesh-ko-kobe)-- which is actually the reason that we decided to start in Merida in the first place. Two years ago, when David was in Merida, he met a local man named Elpidio Canul and they became friends. He met his family and visited with him and his family for a couple of days where they live, in Tixkokob. A few weeks before we left, David wrote a letter (in very bad Spanish) to Elpidio explaining that we would be coming to visit. We were hoping that it would get to Tixkokob before us, that we had the right address, and that they would understand David´s Spanish. AND would they remember David? Did they still live here? Would we be welcome?-- kind of a leap of faith considering all that needed to come together.

So, Sunday morning we set our alarm for 7 am thinking we´d leave by 8. But of course we didn´t get out of bed until 8 (up too late the night before) and then took almost two hours to put our bikes together and eat a fast breakfast. Every Sunday in Merida, two streets are closed to traffic for leisurly family bicycle rides (the bici-ruta). One of the streets is called Paseo de Montejo and has many beautiful historical buildings and trees and monuments along it, they tried to model it after the Champs Elysee in France. So, we rode through Merida for a few miles gathering stares (most of which were directed at Leah as females generally don´t ride bikes, especially in bike shorts and chacos and packed with tons of stuff) and soaking in the beauty and "awesome-ness" of what we were doing at that moment. We then followed our scouted route out of Merida for an uneventful and flat 40km, which sad to say, left our butts SORE.

Upon arriving in Tixkokob, we rode into the town square and stopped to decide what to do next (ride to the house?, find a hotel? eat some lunch?). Our question of what to do next was answered quickly when Elpidio yelled from across the street "Dah-veed, Dah-veed!" We met him and his wife and daughter across the street, hugged and exchanged greetings and then followed them home (behind their tricycle cart). Since then we have been staying at the Canuls house, practicing our Spanish A LOT (our brains are getting sore), eating and laughing with them. We think we´ll leave on Thursday, but who knows.