It’s Monday night in Mérida and the streets alongside its broad town square, Plaza Grande, are alive with hundreds of dancers adorned with traditional attire. Women wear intricately embroidered dresses adorned with colourful floral patterns, while men look smart in white guayaberas and trousers, complemented by wide-brimmed hats.
They tap dance and twirl each other around with the performance finalising with fireworks breaking into the horizon, high above the impressively huge Mexican flag flowing gently in the square, which is flanked by historical buildings, such as the San Ildefonso Cathedral – on the site of a Mayan temple.
Welcome to Mérida, where the city’s heart pulses with a vigorous thrum as musicians playguitars, stalls fry sweet and sticky marquesitas – a popular street food dessert of thin, crispy crepes filled with Nutella, condensed milk and fruit – and market stalls sell everything from hammocks to jewellery.
Under the radar compared to popular destinations Cancun and Tulum, where overdevelopment and crowds have, in some way, made both lose their initial appeal, this charming capital city of Yucatán is now basking in its own spotlight, drawing in a mix of digital nomads, architects and artists, and growing a scene of small boutique hotels and both traditional and hip restaurants to rival bigger cities.
It’s also a feast for the eyes, with buildings painted an ice-cream palette of colours (though admittedly many in varying states of disarray and upkeep), with an easy-to-navigate numerical grid, and squares rich with European colonial architecture.
I stroll down Mérida’s own Champs-Élysées, Paseo de Montejo, the city’s most famous boulevard, named after the founder of Mérida. On a Sunday morning, it closes to cars, and transforms into a fiesta atmosphere, with cyclists, pedestrians and skateboarders taking over the space, craft stands lining up along the European-style street, with colonial mansions that belonged to millionaires who made their money from US-style plantations in the region. The street is also home to the excellent Yucatán Anthropology Regional Museum, with an extensive collection of well-preserved Mayan artefacts.
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To understand Mérida, it’s worth discovering some of its history. The wealth of Mérida comes from one of its past exports: henequen, an agave plant whose fibre was used by the Mayans to make ropes. “But when the Spanish arrived they saw a business opportunity to sell it around the world to shipping companies,” says Argel Pedro, a bushy-eyebrowed personalised tour guide who runs Yucatán Awesome Tours.
“They built haciendas across Yucatán – plantation-style hubs that involved exploiting the indigenous population to work for little or no pay, while the plantation owners’ wealth grew. However, around the 1930s, the market started shifting with the product replaced by cheaper oil-based ropes, the indigenous population revolted, and later the government introduced reform, leading to many haciendas being abandoned.”
While Mérida is worth spending several days in – street Calle 60 alone is a hive of activity with stores, restaurants and galleries to get lost in – it’s also an excellent base to discover other parts of Yucatán that shouldn’t be missed. It has easy access to Mayan archaeological sites. The well-known and impressive Chichén Itzá is about 73 miles away, however, there’s a closer site just 40 miles away worth visiting, and with far fewer crowds.
“While Chichén-Itzá is a place you can’t miss – it’s one of the seven wonders of the world – Uxmal is a special place where the atmosphere is different,” says Pedro. “It feels more peaceful.”
In front of Uxmal’s impressive 32-metre-high Pirámide del Adivino, Pedro claps his hands; it sounds like a bird squawking. “It’s the sound of the Kukulkan bird,” he says, explaining that the bird was sacred to Mayan culture.
As the heat intensifies, fortunately I have a special option to cool off in: cenotes. These underground water reservoirs are unique to Yucatán, and for an outdoor swimming aficionado like myself, they alone are enough of a reason to visit the region. I visit two: Yaal Utzil, a semi-open cenote with turquoise waters run by the local community, and Sambula, a cave cenote with a backdrop of stalactite and stalagmite formations.
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“The Mayans built their lives at these places because of the cenotes,” explains Pedro. “They were a fountain of water for consumption, and for swimming, bathing, and agriculture.” Today they remain an important source of water in the region.
On the following days during my 10-day stint in the city, I visit Celestún biosphere reserve on the western coast of Mexico‘s Yucatán peninsula to take a boat trip to see the flamingos, and for beach time, Sisal, one of the quieter of destinations to take in the region’s sweeping beaches and turquoise sea.
Food also plays a huge part. With Yucatán having its own distinct cuisine, I head to Los Dos, a popular cooking school run by chef Mario Canul. We start with a tour of the food market Lucas de Gálvez Market, where we try horchata, a popular Mexican drink made from rice, milk and cinnamon, and dip our fingers into pumpkin seed butter.
Back at Canul’s home, I knock up sopa de lima (lime soup served with crisply fried tortilla strips), sikil pak (a dip made from ground pumpkin seeds, tomato puree, chillis and onion), and finally, enchiladas stuffed with black beans and cooked wrapped in banana leaves.
Without having to hone your culinary skills, Mérida is brimming with restaurants to try local delights. A popular brunch and lunch spot is Ramiro Cocina, which presents the day’s handful of dishes such as smoked plantain and aubergine tacos on a chalkboard, or for a homely spot, there’s El Apapacho which serves up food in a leafy courtyard with murals and has a feminist, political bookshop to check out while you wait for your food.
For those craving a more eclectic atmosphere, there’s Micaela Mar y Leña, offering more sophisticated Yucatecan dishes, nearly all wood-fired. You can hear whooping every time a customer sends over a beer to the kitchen staff. (which is a choice on the menu). It’s also worth booking ahead for trendy and atmospheric darkly-lit Holoch, which offers inventive Mexican fare and delicious cocktails, while the Museum of Yucatecan Gastronomy is a restaurant and museum that promotes local Yucatecan cuisine, with dishes including chayitas, a tough corn dough with chayaa (like spinach), pumpkin seeds and lima beans.
Enter a conversation with a local in Merida and one of the first things you’ll hear is how safe it is in comparison with the rest of Mexico. As a solo traveller, I felt extremely safe walking around, even after walking back to my hotel after oversized cocktails in a loud La Negrita Cantina, one of the oldest cantinas in Mérida, where people come to dance to live music.
As I lean over to try and hear my new acquaintance, he tells me the main reason he and his family moved from north Mexico 13 years ago was because of how safe it is; where he originates from, kidnaps are common. Here they can live in peace without gangs roaming the streets. But more than that, once you’re here, it’s a place you don’t want to leave.
Getting there
Several major airlines fly into Cancun. From there hire a car or take a bus to Mérida (Busbud is an easy-to-use platform to book buses in Mexico; about £27 each way, 4 hours 15 minutes).
Where to stay
Hotel Diplomat
Alongside on-point personalised service from co-owner Sara, who dishes out excellent recommendations, the other star of the show at Hotel Diplomat is its colourful and abundant Mexican breakfast, served on a wooden platter and changing every day. There’s also a swimming pool to cool off in or hammocks to rest those weary feet, plus a small store stocked with artisan Mexican delights, from jewellery to honey to take home.
Cigno Hotel
Hotel Cigno has been renovated into a small super stylish boutique complete with suites with balconies and plunge pools, blue tiled floors, a terracotta rooftop bar and a sunken pool in the garden.
Casa Pucc
Located in front of Parque de las Americas, the design-led seven-bedroom B&B has high ceilings and off-white limewashed walls, a Smeg fridge stocked with beverages, and almost a prerequisite in Yucatán: an outdoor swimming pool. Rates start from £160 per night.
Casa Olivia
With just four bedrooms, the boutique hotel is testament to owner Ivette Beltrán’s flair for design, pairing locally-made designs with vintage finds. Standout features include an overflowing fountain trickling into the narrow courtyard pool, and of course, a miniature black Italian greyhound whom the hotel is named after.
Suzanne Bearne was a guest of the hotels, Busbud, Yucatán Awesome Tours, the restaurants and Los Dos.
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