We arrive in Merida on New Year’s Eve exactly at midnight. Families sit out on the streets in folding chairs as we pass by on the way to our new home in an old colonial house on Calle 75 in the center of the city. Bonfires burn at the curbs. The explosive pop of fireworks make us jump. And burning farolitos lilt through the night sky, then wink and disappear.
No one is there to meet us at our front door. So we strike up a conversation with Miguel, our teenage neighbor talking on his cell phone in the middle of the street. We ask to borrow it. I am proud to report the entire conversation with Miguel is in Spanish. Soon Janet, the residence manager, arrives with the key and a sweet greeting.
At 2 a.m. we settle in to drink wine and take a dip in the plunge pool, so named as it is unheated and quickly cools every night. The temperature ranges from 80 to 95 during the day and in the mid-70s most nights. It is wonderfully humid. My face feels like a ball of wadded paper slowly unwrinkling.
At 3:30 am we make it to bed. Very tired and very glad to be here in Mexico.
MedFlies 