Rather than zoom right out of town after the tour, I decided to stay around for a couple of days in Mérida, just to unwind and see a little of the local culture. I had chosen an Airbnb that looked quite nice and was supposedly fairly close to some of the points of interest. I ended up doing more chilling that sightseeing, but I did do a little. I was the last person dropped off after the tour, and Dimitriy ended up dropping me off after 11 pm after our dinner. It was pretty dark, and I had been given the lockbox codes to let myself in. The street and building didn’t look like much from the outside, but inside was a beautiful courtyard with a fountain and lush vegetation. I didn’t see too much the first night, but it was a beautiful place to stay. My room had very high ceilings, and it was quite interesting in that the tall doors that opened into the courtyard could be partially opened at the top to let air in through barred openings. It looked like an ancient colonial mansion. It also had a pool and a giant kitchen for those so inclined.
In the evening of the first day I headed out to get some dinner at a place I found on Yelp, but I never found it and ended up eating in a nice restaurant. I had gone to an area that seemed more tourist oriented with shops and restaurants. It was quite hot when I was walking, and I neglected to put on any bug spray. That night I discovered several mosquito bites. I don’t know if they got me while I was walking, or when I stopped in a shady ice cream store for some desert. Just like in Hawaii, they seemed to get me at the end of my trip. The last day I just relaxed and looked at some of my photos. I also got to stretch my communication skills by going into a Pharmacy to try and get some mosquito itch cream using Google translate.
We had 10 shoots (one more than planned) at 9 different locations all over Yucatán including several haciendas, a town square in Izamal, a cenote, at the beach, on the water in a nature reserve, and at a Mayan ruins. For the first time I saw a centipede, a (dead) scorpion, I got to touch the tail of a live crocodile in the wild, and I also got to watch a Mayan ceremony led by a shaman. The only downside was losing a bunch of memory cards, luckily none that had pictures on them yet. All in all a very enjoyable, interesting, and relaxing trip.
