Oh, Mérida, what are you going to do as you grow?  You are based on the ruins of a Mayan city, and you have a rich cultural heritage but you are growing and sprawling beyond your city limits without increasing density.  The sprawl affects your quality of life and chokes local streets.  Buses run through tight corridors with carcinogenic black smoke.  Sidewalks are dangerously narrow offering no pedestrian refuge when scaffolding is up (and there is plenty of scaffolding).  At first it seems that Mérida was Valladolid on steroids because they have similar architectural styles with the 1-2 story buildings, colonial style, public square with cathedral surrounded by Moorish-Colonial buildings.  I was wrong; Mérida is it’s own beast and it is going to have to start coping with its growing pains in progressive ways or it will risk pedestrian tourist injuries with the speeding buses and create gridlock conditions where locals and tourists alike won’t be able to get out of the city.

I didn’t comment on the traffic issues in Valladolid because it’s such a cute town that the fact that you have to slow down as you go into it is quite charming.  The bus station is in the center of town and there is a ton of energy in the surrounding streets.  It isn’t scary there or dirty.

The bus station in Mérida is a different story.  Your bus keeps turning and continuing on these streets that seem to have nothing remarkable about them. You are moving slowly and stopping and going until you finally reach the station.  The station is crowded!  What a mess!  Outside is worse.  Thankfully the taxi stand is connected to the station.  This bus station is on the edge of town. There is another small bus station for the express bus to Progresso right in the middle of town.  The collectivo area for minibuses to distances within 30 min is also a mess. It’s east of the main plaza and it is 100% unclear to where each set of buses or collectivos go.  We couldn’t find the collectivo to Dzibilchaltun or the nearby town. We asked a bunch of bus drivers.  We eventually just did the taxi but we lost precious time.

Mérida’s plazas and parks are gorgeous!  They are a stark difference from the hectic single lane street traffic.  The parks are large and clean and you see many smiling faces.  Watching older couples Cha-Cha at night to jazz was romantic and I just had to buy ice cream and gaze.

Mérida has a nightlife scene and some gay culture but only on the weekends.  We did find a food hall that was reminiscent of Mexico City trendiness.  The Passeo de Montejo is also trendy from what I hear.  I didn’t see many humans there but the buildings looked cool both times I went by.  I saw a salsa performance at the dance bar Mezcaleria and also at Peripau.  The dancers were having a blast.  At the food hall there was Spanish Flamenco-style singing.  While Flamenco dancing is beautiful and the costumes are amazing, the singing takes a special kind of person to appreciate it and that person is not me.  (It reminds me too much of the groaning of Izzy, our local gabbai at Congregation Aviv Hadash, where I attended afternoon Hebrew School for many years of my childhood).

Considering Mérida is the capital of the state of Yucatan, it serves a large political role in the region.  They are building a new convention center and what looks like a really weird self contained apartment complex with a park inside.  Both structures are absolutely massive and outside the traditional city center and look to be maximum three stories tall.  This is a missed opportunity.  The new Department of Justice building is massive and has the same beautiful glass-covered archway as the hall of revolutionaries next to the main cathedral.

Mexican history is fascinating to me. It’s so different than US history and we really learn almost nothing about it in public school.  We had a unit in the 5th Grade about Aztec and Mayan history, but we were told that the Mayans are not really alive anymore.  This is not true at all.

It’s important to note that on each of my day trips from Mérida, the guides spoke of Mayan language and culture and it’s living status. Maya is a spoken language, unlike Yiddish. It isn’t a secret language either.The indigenous people of Mexico are dealing with a political situation with the Zapatistas in Chiapas. I’m not sure if it has made its way to the Yucatan yet.In New York City, we are considering removing statues of slave owners.Statues of US Civil War generals of the Confederacy have already been defaced or removed in the South. I do wonder what the citizens of Mérida think about this and if their city is ready for this conversation.