Centro – Merida’s City Centre

Santa Lucia

Wandering around the city centre of Mérida is an interesting way to spend an afternoon while waiting for another evening parade.  We first walked north on 60th passed a small park called Hildago Park which was beside a small church.  We continued on until we came to a larger church, the one where the children’s parade came to an end, the park named after the church at its edge, the Santa Lucia Park.

While we walked, a bus filled with children in costume passed us on the way towards the start of the parade.  The children waved excitedly calling out “Hola” to us.

We wandered into the church to see how it was different than the other churches.  of course, there were more similarities than differences regardless of the age of the church.

Santa Ana

The corner of 47th was were we turned in order to make our way to the Paseo Montejo, the wide boulevard which is bordered by old Spanish mansions.  At the corner we found the Santa Ana church and a clothing shop where we stopped for a bit of shopping. 

Another two blocks took us to the Paseo Montejo.  When we got to this relatively famous street we stopped in to check out the Museum of Anthropology and History, a museum that had an incredible selection of Mayan artifacts such as those in this photo.

Needless to say, I took way too many photos in the museum.  Of course it was more about learning more about the Mayan culture than it was about photos.

We walked a long way to reach the Monumento a la Bandera which is pictured here on the left.  Just off to the right side was a large grocery store which we decided to check out as we had decided we had gone far enough from the centre of the city.

Beer, oops, cerveza anyone?

As we began our walk back on the opposite side of the street we passed a lot of stalls being set up for the evening parade and follow-up entertainments.  We couldn’t believe the amount of beer and liquor that was out on display on both sides of the parade route along the Paseo Montejo.

Plaza Grande or also known as the Zocalo de Merida.

We stopped off at Walmart which was on our way back, to buy some fixings for a lunch and some wine for the evening.  Stopping was a good idea as the distance and the heat were starting to take a toll on our energy supplies.  Eventually, we made it back to the hostel for some quiet time.

The clock tower at city hall.

The people staying at the hostel were quite interesting to see as they were not all just young backpackers.  I would have to say that the majority were in their late twenties to late thirties with a good sprinkling of us senior types thrown in for good measure.

We decided to take a half hour of our afternoon to check up on things back home in Canada at the hostel’s Internet lounge.  Not much time for e-mail, just enough time to find out that the world back home was continuing as it normally does.    The only really bad news was that Ottawa lost another hockey game.