Our Arrival in Mérida....Now What?

We drove straight from Palenque to Progreso on a Saturday. We wanted to take the dogs to a beach for some much needed exercise and for all of us to breathe some salty air after such a long journey on what seemed like endless pavement. Besides, there were guests in our Mérida home for the last night of their vacation and we couldn't exactly crash there. In the three years of being home owners in the Yucatán, we had never ventured to the Gulf shores, spending all of our precious few days in the Centro exploring our soon-to-be forever home. As we neared the shore, we veered to the East and headed toward San Benito and San Crisanto where we had browsed a few lovely beach homes on various real estate sites. There is a natural pull to the ocean or gulf waters for both of us. I grew up an easy hour's drive to the beautiful Gulf of Mexico beaches of the Florida Panhandle, and Alan a stone's throw from Long Island Sound. We lived a block from the beach in Florida for six years and then for 25 years in Virginia, a 20 minute drive to the Atlantic Ocean. We enjoy the vibrancy of urban living, but it is comforting at times to be near an ocean. I could never live in the heartland of the United States, where water is something you drink or bathe in and where you can drive all day to find a lake or stream.

The beaches were all but deserted as we headed down the narrow paved beach road. The little sandy lanes that lead to the water's edge seemed too narrow for our monstrous van. I was afraid of getting buried to the axle in beach sand so we kept driving. Approaching the small gulf village of Telchac Puerto, we followed the signs that took us into the heart of this quaint little town. After receiving a few stares at this oddity of a vehicle, we parked on a sandy lane right on the beach in front of vacant beach houses waiting for the onslaught of next summer's inhabitants. This seemed like a quiet place, sufficiently out of the way of people who might be annoyed by the sound of a running generator. The dogs were ecstatic over an open beach on which to run and explore the smells that were somehow different from those of the Chesapeake Bay.

We walked on the beach, enjoyed the sunset and spent the night right where we parked. The next morning we explored a bit more, found a couple of the homes we had seen for sale, then headed to the Centro where Remixto had our home clean and stocked with fresh flowers, fruit, Charritos (our favorite), and sparkling water. It was so very nice to finally be home.

This blog has been all about getting here -to all the colores de Mérida and the mysterious draw of this sometimes puzzling yet comfortable city in the Yucatán, whose intractable heat either wins you over or defeats you. Maybe I'll write about our daily struggles and triumphs, or perhaps the blog will become another photographic endeavor (if I can overcome my frustration with not being able to capture the perfect image). And then, it could be time to put this away and just live...