Rotting Away in Mexican Jail?

Don´t worry. I´m not in jail. I´ve been trying to upload photos of our trip from a few different internet cafes here in Merida and they are all soooo damn slow. Photos may have to wait until we get home.

We stopped in Valladolid on the way to Hacienda Chichen our first day. We had a nice lunch. I´d skip Valladolid in the future. It´s a big city, at least bigger than we thought it would be. Most roads are one-way but they aren´t marked very well. I ended up going the wrong way down a couple of them. Very stressful.

Our night at Hacienda Chichen was very nice. We´ve got some pictures. It´s a nice hotel with very comfortable rooms and beautiful grounds. The food is OK, not great and definitely overpriced for what it is. Hacienda Chichen is the ideal way to visit the ruins at Chichen Itza and avoid the hoards of tourists that show up at 10 am in the armadas of busus from Cancun.

We were able to walk through Chichen Itza in a couple of hours. It was nice to be one of the few people there when the gates opened at 8am. We were in the ball court by ourselves for about 15 minutes at one point and got some very nice pictures too. The sky was overcast and eventually changed over to a very light rain. It was quite nice. It kept the temperature down and was nice to be outside in a warm rain instead of 20 degrees and snow for a change.

After Chichen Itza we got on the road to Merida via some back roads. We stoped in Izamal for lunch at Kinich. Great food and a great town. Most of the buildings in Izamal are painted the same shade of golden yellow. It´s clean, comfortable and everyone is friendly. We took a tour of the local nunnery and chapels which was built over the top of a Mayan pyramid back in the mid 1500s. Our tour guide was a Mayan quasimodo. About 4 feet tall complete with unfortunate spinal curvature. The little twerp wouldn´t stop touching my wife under the pretense of being helpful. He went from helpful guide to an obnoxious, deformed, sad little creature in a matter of 15 minutes. Overall, Izamal was a great stop. We´ve got some photos from here too.

We´ve been in Merida the past couple of nights. It´s not what I was hoping for though we are having fun. I had hoped Merida would be like Oaxaca. It´s not. I doubt I´d come back to Merida. Tonight is our last night in Merida and tomorrow we head back east to the northern Yucatan coast. Our destinaction is Isla Holbox for four nights. I may not be able to post any updates for the next few days. But don´t worry. I doubt it will be because I´m in a Mexican jail.