Day 326 - Merida « Travel the Gap

Exploring Merida

Today, we woke up at our Airbnb, Departamento completo independiente jardines very late. By the time we were ready to explore, it was 1pm.

Mayan World Museum of Merida

We caught an Uber to the Mayan World Museum of Merida. The Uber only cost 75 MXN / $5.68 AUD. The building looks really cool. It reminded me of the Birds Nest Stadium in China. We purchased tickets to the museum for 150 MXN / $11.35 AUD per person (p/p).

Once we went inside, a really friendly security guard talked to us for a while. Firstly we had to return to the ticket office and drop off our backpacks at the complimentary lockers. When we returned he showed us to the exhibits.

The museum was really interesting. The information inside the museum starts from the time of the Mayan empire, and goes into the Spanish conquest. The start of the museum was focusing more on culture and tradition. Then it became super interesting as it went deeper into the Mayan way of life.

We spent a total of 1.5 hours in the museum.

Merida City Centre

After talking to the staff at the museum, we walked to the bus stop just outside. From here we waited for a bus going to “Centro”. We were told that all the yellow buses go to the city centre. The bus cost 8 MXN / $0.65 AUD p/p, and we paid with coins (as is required from what we could tell). The bus stopped one block away from the Central Plaza (Plaza Grande). It was the end of the line as everyone got off the bus here.

We walked around the Plaza Grande. The plaza is surrounded by old buildings including the Merida Cathedral and the Tourist Information Centre. We had a home made lunch in the Plaza. There is also cool artwork inside the Passage of the Revolution (Pasaje de La Revolucion). While we were walking through the passage, it started to rain heavily outside. Luckily the passage is under cover. We waited here until the rain died down.

After the rain, we walked to what we thought was a walking street, Paseo de Montejo. We can confirm that it wasn’t a walking street when we were there. However, the street was full of very nice looking houses and museums. Unfortunately, most of them were closing when we were walking past. We decided to take a pit stop at Starbucks, which was delicious but expensive. We continued walking towards a massive roundabout. From here we caught an Uber back to the airbnb.