The shopping never ends

There was no luxuriating in a cenote today and so Daniel made a point of stopping off at the Merida Costco, where there’s a cenote in the middle of the parking lot – almost exactly as scenic as the other cenotes.

We went over to the Paseo de Montejo area today. This avenue is a boulevard style street lined with grand mansions that the hacienda owners built, using material and designs from Europe. The hacienda owners grew sisal plants and used that sisal to make rope, cloth, baskets and more. The sisal was transported to Europe by ship and the ships came back from Europe loaded with building materials and household goods. The result is a grand street a la Paris, right in the middle of Merida. Here’s a few pics:

These were beautiful, but as we strolled, my eyes alighted upon an odd-looking building with a large zebra out front and Daniel said it was some sort of a store and I immediately extracted a promise from everyone traveling with me that either I throw an enormous tantrum or I be allowed a few minutes inside. Even Ron will admit that he enjoyed his time inside, if only because today was the hottest day yet and the store had air conditioning.

Here’s Ron with the zebra that beckoned – surely he had the same anticipatory smile on his face that I did!

And inside? Well, it was the most complete collection of things you definitely don’t need. Lime green sofa? Rocket ship bed for a child? Life size gingerbread man? Creepy monkey for the front door of our condo? Yes to all! Here’s a couple of pictures. Daniel said that, in all of his tour guiding, he has never been in this place and so I feel I’ve shared something special with Daniel, by way of thank you for the great information about ice with holes in it (and the history information etc.)

Today was the first day that we were unable to do some of our planned activities – a few of the museums just have not opened up yet. So we had to skip the Mayan World Museum and a mansion or two but I feel we made up for the loss with the zebra store and Daniel took us to a little cafe that is famous for their ice cream/sorbet products. Look at Daniel’s flavor choice: corn ice cream, which will NOT become part of my repertoire.

Down below is Casa de Montejo, built in 1540, sitting on Merida’s main square. There’s a cool museum inside but they were not open yet…look closely at the exterior in the second picture. The man in the middle? He’s a Mayan with a whole bunch of Spaniards sitting on his back. And the two guys – one on either side? If you look closely, each one is standing on a decapitated Mayan head. It’s the same with the buildings – churches and government buildings – look closely and you can see they were built with rocks from dismantled Mayan buildings. It all adds a little bit of insight into the Spanish as conquistadors for certain.

Merida is a great city. European but still Mexican in the best possible way. Friendly, easy, safe and welcoming. The US dollar goes really far here. No matter what we do, we cannot spend more than $25 on dinner. Tonight, we only spent $13 because I talked Ron into a Burger King meal after 5 nights of Italian food. And it was a good thing we saved that money because, apparently, when Ron mentions at dinner that he might like to buy a large Mayan calendar made of wood, that man is not messing around: