Michael Powell's Blog, page 93
January 26, 2014
The Maya Ruins of Edzná
Just 50 kilometers from Campeche, the Maya ruins of Edzná make for an easy day trip. Best known for its five-level pyramid-palace structure, Edzná is one of the more compact and impressive archaeological sites we had yet seen during our time on the Yucatán peninsula.
Without a car of our own, we had to depend on public transportation to get from Campeche to Edzná, and it wasn’t exactly straightforward. We went to the market and started asking around. Everyone had a different idea on where to f...
January 25, 2014
The Ramparts and Museums of Campeche
At the beginning of the 18th century, the construction of Campeche’s fortifications rescued the city from the devastation of unrelenting pirate attacks. Over three hundred years later, the surviving walls and fortresses have shifted their focus from protection to tourism.
Seven of Campeche’s original eight bastions are still standing, and a satisfying tour can be had by simply following their circular path around the city. We started at the Baluarte de Santiago, which today hosts Campeche’s sm...
January 24, 2014
A Trip to Campeche
With a historic central district protected for centuries by an impenetrable set of fortifications, Campeche is one of the most beautiful cities in Mexico. It’s just a couple hours down the Gulf Coast from Mérida and, during the two days we spent here, we were completely won over by the city’s picturesque charm.
Campeche was founded in 1540, on the site of a Maya city called Kinpech. Almost right away, the new Spanish settlement drew the attention of pirates operating in the Gulf of Mexico and...
January 23, 2014
The Gran Museo del Mundo Maya
On the northern outskirts of Mérida is the Gran Museo del Mundo Maya, one of the Yucatán’s largest and most popular new museums. Taking visitors on a comprehensive journey through the world of the Maya, it’s the kind of place you should visit only when you have a lot of time.
Capitalizing on the famous Maya doomsday prophecies, the Gran Museo del Mundo Maya opened on December 21st, 2012. Strange timing. Why open a museum about the Maya on the same day that worldwide interest in them was set to...
La Música Yucateca
One of the Yucatán’s defining characteristics is its love of music. Whether it’s the daily free concerts in the plazas around Mérida, the Mexican pop blasting out of every tiny shop, or the kids walking around with their smartphones on speaker-mode, music is an inescapable fact of life here. So we weren’t surprised to find a museum dedicated to Yucatecan music, right in the center of Mérida.
Found near the Plaza de La Mejorada, the Museo de la Canción Yucateca takes visitors on a tour of the p...
Progreso – Mérida’s Beach Town
Talking to expats and reading online accounts, we’d allowed ourselves to believe that Progreso was a fairly humdrum place and, when we finally visited, it was only out of a vague sense of duty. But while we had braced ourselves for boredom, what we discovered was a friendly, likable and unpretentious beach town. The miracle of low expectations strikes again!
Exploring the Yucatán with public transportation isn’t always a simple prospect, but getting to Progreso from Mérida couldn’t have been e...
January 19, 2014
A Quick Trip to Historic Maní
After visiting the ruins of Mayapan, we made our way south to the tiny town of Maní. Known both for its Yucatecan cuisine and as the setting for one of the darkest moments in the peninsula’s history, it’s a fascinating place to spend the afternoon.
If you’re about to tour the Yucatán by bus, make sure it’s not a Sunday. Or at least, not the Sunday before Christmas. Getting from Mérida to Mayapan wasn’t bad, but continuing to Maní was a nightmare. The 24-kilometer journey took more than two hou...
January 15, 2014
Mayapan – The Final Capital of the Maya
Mayapan was the final major capital of the Maya civilization, with a period of preeminence that lasted from 1200 AD to 1400, following the fall of Chichén Itzá. Thanks to its relatively recent age, many of the ruins have survived in good condition, and it’s easy to imagine exactly how the city must have looked during its prime.
With over 4000 structures packed into a 4.2 square kilometer site, Mayapan is nothing if not compact. Check out this map of structures from the website of archaeologist...
Acanceh
After swimming in Chunkanán’s three cenotes, we felt energized enough to stop in at nearby Acanceh before returning to Mérida. This small town is one of the oldest Maya sites in the Yucatán, and one of the few to retain its original Maya name.
Archaeologists date the ruins of Acanceh to 300 AD and the dawn of the Classic Era. At this stage in Maya history, the great cities were much further south in Guatemala and the Chiapas region of Mexico. And there’s reason to suspect that early Acanceh wa...
The Three Cenotes of Chunkanán
Hundreds of cenotes pockmark the earth of the Yucatán peninsula. Fed by subterranean rivers, these pools once served as sources of fresh water for the Maya, but today they’re primarily used for fun. We visited three amazing cenotes on a popular tour leaving from the village of Chunkanán.
Our tour began in front of the restaurant Dzapacal, where we hopped into a cart pulled by horse along old railway tracks. Chunkanán was once home to one of the Yucatán’s many henequen plantations, and these ra...
