Part two my Cypriot Mayan adventure- Mérida-Campeche

After our taco feast we decided to start the day with some hard-core exercise….NAAAT!!! Clearly that was a joke. We decided to go to the beach, relax and eat some more. We were in Mérida and the only other thing we had planned for the day was to see the ruins of Uxmal before heading south to Campeche so we had some time to spare and decided a quick dip and some fresh fish would hit the spot. We made our way to the beach town of Progreso, half an hour from the centre of Mérida to join what seemed like a million gringos who had descended from their cruise holidays (apparently it’s a popular stop). Luckily for us they didn’t hang around too much and we managed to have a quick dip and some really good fish. This included Stelios’ first Latin American ceviche which he loved so much he proceeded to have it every day after that.

Soon enough we were back on the road and off towards our second Mayan ruins. We had planned it all perfectly and would arrive in Uxmal an hour and a half before closing time, giving us just enough time to see the ruins. But we had forgotten one thing; if you want to make God laugh, show him your plans. We were in México, making plans and being on time are a completely lost cause in this country. The president had decided to visit Mérida and security was tight. The police had decided to pretend to do some work and they just so happened to stop us and strip search our vehicle and us for a whole hour. The irony of the whole situation is that I had pierced my ears in Colombia a couple of weeks earlier and had been given a little bag of sea salt to disinfect it with, which I had forgotten in my bag. It was a little see-through bag of white powder, it couldn’t have been dodgier than that. I was innocent but things could have gotten really ugly. Luckily for us the four super competent policemen who strip searched our vehicle and us managed to not find the only remotely incriminating item in the whole car, despite going through every single cigar individually, and fiddling around with Andrie’s and mine underwear and delicate personals. México is in safe hands.

Either way they took about an hour searching us so we arrived at Uxmal late and had to run around the ruins before closing time. Despite this we all agreed they were the best ruins we had seen so far and decided to stay for the evening light show. However this wasn’t for a few hours and we needed something to do in the meantime. Uxmal was in the middle of nowhere so the afternoon didn’t seem very promising but then one of the employees suggested we go to a nearby village where they were having a local festival in celebration of “the day of the kids” (like mothers day but for children).

Upon arrival at the village of Muna we were pretty sceptical as it seemed dead, even for a random Mexican village, but soon enough we were directed towards the scene of the action and realised that the festival was actually a bi-yearly bull running cowboy tournament that surrounding villages organised as a competition between their local ranches. Amazing. Cowboys in the south, who would have thought?! And we had stumbled upon them completely by accident. Or, as I chose to believe, fate was on my cowboy-loving side 🙂 Obviously I got super overexcited, but it was pretty amazing and the bull running competition was a lot of fun. They let the bull into the ring, with a couple of matador looking wannabes and unexplainably a young boy dressed up as a woman. They tease the bull a bit and then the cowboys come riding in on their horses with their lassos and the first one to capture the bull wins. It’s really tense and sometimes the bull runs at the audience which really gets your heart pumping because the wooden shack stadium held up by a couple of twigs is a far cry from the Emirates.

It was for me an amazing experience and just goes to show sometimes the Mexicans are right, it really is better not to make plans. We drove to Campeche after the show and arrived late and exhausted and all got a good night’s rest.