Mexico City / Merida

After the longest 72 hours of our lives, we touched down in Mexico City... We were still pining for the normality of Miami, because after 6 weeks of hearing only Spanish any Eglish sounds good, even when its spoken with a ridiculously loud American accent... It wasnt to be though as we settled in for another two weeks battling the language barrier.. We had a trek around and found that Mexico was going to be a great place to be. The Corona was flowing, the tacos were hot, the locals were friendly and the asking price for pretty much anything you want was south of a dollar... We didnt have long there though, as we were off again that night for Merida, the capital of the Yucatan, in the far south west of Mexico. Only 21 hours.. no problem...
I wont bore you with how punishing the bus trip was, lets just say that it is best left in the past where it belongs...
Anyway, we arrived in Merida and checked in to what has to be the worlds cheapest hotel.. at $52 Aussie dollars. For 3 nights. It actually wasnt to bad, but i think that it just seemed that way after spending time in the youth hostels of South America.. Still, we were pretty pleased, until night fell. Now, keeping in mind that it is in fact the middle of winter, it didnt at first glance seem to be a problem that our room had no windows and no air con, but believe me, winter in Mexico is stupidly hot. After 8 hours of sleep we had lost several kilos in sweat, were stuck to the bed, and had tans that Bert Reynolds would have been proud of.
Still, as we were in a new place i pryed Sams body from the mattress and we went exploring. Merida isnt your classic tourist destination, in fact i think we were the only westerners around.. but thats what made it good... its mexicanness ... Everyone looked at us like we where aliens, but we watched them go about life in Mexico.. it was good to be somewhere that was a true representation of life in another country... They had mexican festivals with mexican music, mariachi bands, salsa dancing and all that other mexican stuff, not watered down for the tourist crowd.. Yes Merida is hot, dirty and poor, but its a good place to go if you want to see what life is really like...
3 days there though and it was time to move on, to ossibly the second most touristy place in Mexico, after Cancun... Playa del Carmen..