What to do in Merida, Yucatan
Mérida, Yucatan. The city is just a few hours drive from Cancun, but while more than 10 million people visit Cancun every year, very few make it out to Mérida. Which is a shame because the city is so beautiful. It’s away from the touristy areas of Cancun and the Riviera Maya but with a population of over 1 million it’s quite a big city with lots of things to do. With it’s cute, colorful, small colonial houses lining the streets, it has more of a small town vibe to it and feels quite homey. Merida is also a very safe city, so you can explore freely. While many of the hostels I’ve stayed at so far in Mexico have locked doors or security service, the hostel doors in Merida were always wide open with no one even manning the front desk. I felt entirely safe during my stay there though! Yet another reason to visit.
When you go, here’s a few things I did during my 3 night stay in this beautiful colonial city:
Free walking tour: I love free walking tours! They’re such a great and affordable way to get to know a city. Oftentimes you don’t actually walk that far but you learn about so many more places around town to visit. The free walking tour in Mérida started in the historic center at the Parque de Santa Lucia. We learned about the Mayan history of Yucatan, the city’s history, and the most important sites to see and things to do. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and everything he talked about during the 2-hour tour was super interesting! We walked around the centro area and ended the tour at the Plaza Grande, near the Cathedral (learned that many churches around town used to be pyramids that were then restructured as churches.. Kinda sad actually, I would prefer pyramids..). Since the tour ended around lunchtime we headed to the Market San Lucia for a bite to eat next (one of the many recommendations we got during the tour).
Mercado San Lucia: This is a huge market located just a quick walk from the city center. You will find everything here: fruits, veggies, food, jewelry, souvenirs – whatever your heart desires. We wandered around the isles for a bit before we settled for a place to get lunch. I got a torta (a kind of sandwich) and a huge jug of agua de fruta all in all for 35 pesos (not even 2€). And it was delicious! If you’re on a budget these kind of markets are a must for you!
Live music in the evenings: In the afternoon, I just relaxed at the hostel. Mérida weather is pretty hot, so it’s best to find a shaded spot to chill and wait out the heat after lunch. In the evening though, a nice breeze came out and it was a perfect summer night. I went to the Parque de Santiago to meet a friend for dinner, which is another park close to the city center. Mérida is just coming out of the lockdown and losening Covid restrictions, so they are finally allowing open air concerts again. Almost every night of the week, there is traditional music at one of the parks around town. We grabbed a seat at the restaurant next to where the stage was set up and enjoyed 2 hours of good food, live music, and dancing of the locals. It was so cute! You could tell everyone was excited to finally be able to go out and dance again after the pandemic! The food was also delicious! I had a traditional Yucatan dish which was basically taquitos stuffed with eggs and a green sauce and a Marquesita for dessert. They sell these everywhere on the street and I’ve been wanting to try them! Marquesitas are sort of like crepes rolled up and filled with your toppings of choice, but baked crunchy, not soft. Very yummy but actually a bit difficult to eat as they just kind of fall apart when you bite into it.. At least mine did. I’m sure other people manage to eat them much more gracefully. After the concert, I walked back to the hostel, which is not a problem in Mérida, even at night. I did stay mostly on the main streets to be extra catious but it’s a safe city. If you don’t want to walk, Uber is also very common, safe and cheap around here.
Cenotes: The next day, we went on a day-trip out of the city. There are lots of things to do around Merida. There’s old Mayan ruins, beaches, cenotes – basically all the cool things that you find around the Yucatan peninsula. We opted for an adventure to visit some cenotes. As backpackers are typically on a budget, we used public transport to explore on our own instead of booking a tour. The volunteers at the hostel recommended the cenotes at Hacienda Kampepen, which are located just outside of the town of Homun. The colectivos (public busses) in Merida run all around the city as well as the surrounding towns so it’s easy and cheap to get anywhere (about 20-30 pesos one way). Just make sure to bring lots of time as they don’t run on a set schedule but just leave whenever they fill up. Unfortunately, we had terrible timing. It took us a bit to find the colectivo station for the bus to Homun (it is located in a parking lot behind the Terminal Noreste fyi). Once we found the station, our bus was just leaving so we had to wait about an hour for the next one to fill up. Another 45 minute drive later, we finally arrived at Homun from where we took a tuktuk taxi to the cenotes. A quite fun adventure especially once the road started turning more and more into just dirt and stones. It was a quick ride though so very much doable and also only 20 pesos.
At Hacienda Kampepen you can visit 3 cenotes and just go along the trail at your own pace to explore each of them. You can also rent bikes for very cheap to get around more easily. However, the bikes were in such bad condition and the trail was so rocky that it might in fact have been easier to just walk.. You live and you learn. We visitied all three cenotes. The first one did not have any water in it (but there was a tarantula living in there..) but we could swim in the other two. Besides us there was only one other couple on the trail so we basically had the cenotes all to ourselves. This was awesome especially since most of the popular spots around Tulum or Valladolid are always super crowded with people. It was so peaceful and pretty!
Our tuktuk driver waited for us at the exit and then even took us to another cenote nearby, Cenote Yaxbacaltun (no clue how to pronounce that). This one was a lot bigger than the ones at Kampepen and had a tower to jump off of and a rope jump. Pretty cool! And again, barely any people here! Our driver stayed with us the entire time and took videos of our embarassing attempts of doing the rope jump before taking us back to Homun. This time we were in luck and got there just before the Colectivo was leaving, no wait at all!
By the time we got to the hostel, I was exhausted, hung around the common area a bit for guacamole night (yumm.. gotta love free hostel activities!). I went to bed super early to be ready for my flight to Mexico City the next day 🙂 A bit sad to leave Merida as it was definitely my favorite place to visit in Mexico so far, but I can always come back.
[…] After lunch I went back to the hotel to relax by the pool until it was time to head back to the bus station for my bus to Merida 🙂 (read about my time in Merida here) […]