Merida had all the makings of a great Mexican town – stately Spanish colonial buildings, a lively and bustling central plaza, interesting markets and shops to poke your nose into.
But the real point of coming to this part of the country was to get our Maya on – that is, to learn something about this amazingly advanced and powerful civilisation that was mysteriously consumed by the Yucatan jungle several hundred years ago.
It’s amazing to think that just as the Roman empire was fizzling out, the Maya were developing astrological charts, implementing complex agricultural plans and techniques, building big cities and trading with other civilisations.
Even better, they were using chocolate for money! Actually cacao beans, where chocolate comes from, were used as a currency in place of metal coins. Apparently they were extremely rare, and their whole supply was controlled by the ruling rich class.
Another impressive thing about the Maya was their amazing hieroglyph language, which has only been partially deciphered to this date and is not even fully understood by the many thousands of surviving Maya people living in the Yucatan.
Advanced they were, but the Maya were also pretty brutal. They deformed the skulls and jawbones of their children by forcing them to wear a big wooden plate-like contraptions and beating them in the mouth from an early age. Apparently having a super-flat head and a lopsided grin was all the rage.
Our urge to discover more things Maya led us south of Merida to the ruins of the ancient city of Uxmal, thought to have been abandoned in 900AD. We stayed in a nearby town called Santa Elena.
With dusty streets, clapped out trucks and meandering locals, this is probably the closest we have come to a traditional Mexican village. Nearly everybody is indigenous here and speaks Maya. The women mainly still wear traditional dress – white tunic-style dresses adorned with floral prints around the neck.
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