Hey guys welcome back to Eat,Baila, Travel i'm Jenny and this is Kevin and today we are excited
to explore merida for the first time as potential inhabitants of the city. We visited about two years ago for the first time on vacation.
And we fell in love with it so much we thought that this could potentially be our new home.
So now that we're here visiting this time around we are going to analyze, evaluate reflect,
on what might make this city our new home
We're also here to figure out whether we can handle the heat we're hoping not to melt the month that we're here in Merida
So, we came purposely during the month of April and May to make sure that we can handle this heat.
And the heat so far has been easily every day 100 degrees up to 110 degrees fahrenheit.
So far we haven't melted um but we'll see let's just hope that we're still good by the end of this
Merida is a city full of treasures and Parque Santa Lucia is one of those.
It's a gorgeous park with restaurants that has patios seating underneath trees and palm trees.
So day or night this is a great place to hang out at, but the best time to come is on Thursdays when they have traditional serenatas.
The stage behind me is where they have the traditional serenadas every Thursday
before the pandemic and hopefully sometime soon after.
Honestly the serenata tradition is what makes this plaza so special because there are people who come and dance
there's a group of music there are professional dancers and just people from the community
who come enjoy the music and share that happiness.
You know us we'd love to be anywhere
that there's music and dancing and so we fell in love with this place instantly specifically this park.
Alright, so this is how we decide whether or not to call Merida at home.
The things that are important to us are: size, safety, climate, health and fitness and of course a dance scene.
So let's start with number one and talk about the size of Merida.
The city of Merida is located on the northwest part of the state of Yucatan.
It's the capital of the state and it's also the largest city in the entire peninsula of Yucatan
Which means it's actually larger than Cancun. There are about 1 million people living in this city.
So, I would call it a medium-sized city compared to our home city of Chicago.
It's definitely much smaller but it's large enough traveling from the north end to the south end is still going to be
a significant drive. Especially if there's traffic we haven't done it yet but i would guess it might
take anywhere from 40 minutes from north to south.
But the reason I mentioned that is because it also reminds me of Chicago in a sense that it's a city of neighborhoods
There are tons of colonias or just different different neighborhoods that characterize where you live in Merida.
So when you say you you live in Merida they will ask: which colonia? in other words; which neighborhood? or which jardin?
Yeah! There are Jardines de Merida there's Santiago, there's Garcia Gineres, so many jardines. I don't even know them all yet.
That was just to name a few examples just like how Chicago has Pilsen, Little Village Ukrainian Village, Chinatown and so on
The reason we mentioned that is because every colonia and every jardin, every little town has its little magic to it.
Certain neighborhoods provide certain cultures, certain food so as we keep driving around and exploring Merida.
We keep realizing that everything that we like from Chicago they they have it around here Korean food, Thai food, Indian food
Yeah! That's another thing it has a very metropolitan feel to it, which as far as
we're hearing it's it's a pretty recent new thing with the recent growth that Merida has experienced.
The availability of international restaurants international banks, huge shopping malls with
H&Ms and Zara's and a variety of American, European shopping centers.
They even have a tesla!!
Yea, I mean you have all things that you would find, almost all things that you would find in just about any metropolitan city.
But one of my favorite things is that it has a small town feel to it.
The neighborhoods are very homey the city as a whole is full of such kind and wonderful people.
So it really helps to make a large city feel smaller.
Another important part is safety, Merida is considered the safest city in Mexico. Also, the safest city of Latin America and the safest
city in North America with a population of nearly a million.
I mean if we ever want to have kids and raise a family. I think Merida would be a perfect place to do so.
You can walk at any time of the day if you can survive the heat at midday but at night you know it tends to cool off a little bit
and it's really nice you can walk around come to the parks. Have a marquesita never feel like if you leave your bike out they're going to steal it
Or certain situations where you feel unsafe walking in the neighborhoods never. There's a lot of police there's a lot of surveillance
But not in an intimidating way which I would say I've definitely felt in other parts of Mexico.
Here it's you can walk around and not have to worry about being assaulted or robbed or
you know random bullet um and so we we speak based off of where we're coming from so relatively you
know when we're looking for a new safe home. Mexico doesn't normally come to people's minds but if
you haven't heard of Merida then maybe you haven't heard how safe it can be.
Oh my god!100 degrees feels like 109 ready to see what it looks like underneath this face mask how do i look?
Holy crap this is this is from walking around downtown for an hour so granted this isn't an
everyday thing but oh my god sweat stash all day every day again.
If you can handle the heat Merida is a place for you. We came here during the month of April and May, which they say are the hottest
some compare it it's the closest thing to hell
But it so we came to see for ourselves and they weren't lying it's really really hot during what
11 30 a.m to maybe four o'clock you do not want to be out in the streets because you will melt
Like this is no bs you will melt! Avoid the sun in the hours of 11 to 2 at least.
We for the most part don't really go outside unless we have to during those hours but in the evenings
it's pretty great. I mean i'm sweating don't get me wrong but i'm comfortable i'm good i'll take this
if you're uncomfortable with sweating then Merida is not a place for you.
We constantly sweat we're sitting down eating we're sweating, we watch tv we're sweating. And you know one of
the things that people complain about around here or just Mexico in general the electricity tends
to be very expensive very expensive so don't expect to be running your air conditioning 24/7.
We use it at night just to be able to sleep comfortably but other than that you just survive a
fans all day. So it is technically a tropical climate with wet season and dry season with April and May usually being the hottest months
So as long as we can survive April and May then we know that we can live here that's why we're here but
we're about a half hour drive to Puerto Progreso which is one of the closest beaches but there
are also beaches all around all along the emerald coast or la costa esmeralda of Yucatan which have
amazing beautiful beaches just as beautiful as the ones in Cancun but way less crowded much
more calm so they're honestly really hidden gems so if you're interested in these kinds of beaches
definitely check out the emerald coast. The beaches are one way to cool off or hang out in the nature
but one of our other favorite things to do are to hang out in cenotes. Yeah, you want to
cool off you have to go to a cenote because the water is nice and cold. These things are such an adventure the
theory is that the cenotes were created when the meteors hit the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.
And created these wells in the ground or sinkholes on the ground that are have fresh water underneath
So people now swim in them but there are other stories that tell that the mayans believed that
these were sacred bodies of water. Geographically speaking Merida is about a three or four hour
drive west of Cancun so that means that we've got a really great destination if you want a longer
weekend getaway or more luxurious weekend getaway but there are so many amazing travel destinations
in the peninsula of Yucatan. That are within driving distance i don't ever imagine getting
bored like if we had the opportunity to do less international travel and got the chance to explore
more of the yucatan we've heard people say that they've been spending their entire lives exploring
in the peninsula and never seen it all they still haven't seen it all.
So i'm excited about about that possibility but also if the travel bug is really biting then we have
access to international airports like the Merida airport the cancun airport there are flights all
over the world especially in Cancun for very very affordable prices. So that'll be a big plus to have
to be that close to an international airport if we do want to do some international traveling.
This is one of our favorite restaurants in Merida every time we've been here we make sure we
start here and live here it's called Mariscos Chichi and why are we here because they have an
amazing octopus so soft and succulent technically octopus season doesn't start until August
Food is important to us now not just because we like to eat which DUH! we do!
But also because it's an important part of being healthy and
being able to access fresh and not so preserved food to us is super important.
And when food has to travel so far in the United States to get to us it's no longer fresh so it's
something I look forward to about living in Merida. You know should it potentially be chosen as our
future home we're still thinking about it and it's not perfect either like here in Merida you
can find fresh seafood uh August is known for its octopus season which is super delicious you
can get a lot of fresh fish you can't find oysters there's a lot of pork and you can't find beef like
Like beef like we are used to they don't raise northern part of Mexico they don't raise
cattle as much as they do in other areas so that's brought in from other states oysters are
brought in from other states. but so it's it's kind of give-and-take something we really enjoy about
Merida is that because of its tropical climate we have access to fresh fruits Papaya, coconuts, bananas, mangos..
Mangos it's really nice to have that access to tropical fruits and we could have it at any
time and it's nice and fresh especially the papaya and the mangoes right now we're in mango season
and let me tell you it is delicious delicious especially the ice cream!
That beef is a con for me because i love my grilled meats and steaks it's a you can tell the prices at
stores that beef and chicken are a little bit more expensive but if we can have some octopus
and turkey you know we're good we should also mention that the yucatecan diet.
Primarily uses pork as its main source of protein so a lot of local dishes like the Poc Chuc
Or the breaded pork so you'll have a lot of like pork based dishes which are delicious but
not the healthiest so we don't eat them very often so just something to keep in mind.
You know you're thinking about what you're going to eat if you're out here on topic of
food moving into the topic of fitness there are lots and lots of fitness clubs and organizations
here in merida which i've noticed they've got all kinds of yoga studios pilates kickboxing
martial arts gyms dance academies and studios of all kinds like the other day we saw
a kids bollywood and belly dancing group practicing in the park which is super cool
there's like any kind of physical activity that you like except for like snowboarding and skiing
and of course one of our personal favorites dance classes and dance studios for salsa and bachata
we actually signed up for one we've been taking classes with astro salsa with jose luis he's a
wonderful instructor and we've been practicing our on-two salsa moves he's really great and
we've enjoyed getting to know the dance community through the classes honestly there haven't been
many socials because of the pandemic but in our prior visit we noticed that there was a huge
salsa community presence that we really really loved which actually is a good segue into our next
favorite thing when it comes to looking for a new home is the importance of
some sort of dance scene for us
salsa the salsa community is big in media we really enjoy that you can go out every night
in merida especially in centro and and check out live salsa places like the negrita has salsa
the fact that there is a strong presence of a sasha community already here is awesome because
that means that making friends will be easy doing what we love will be easy and we can do
it every night too yeah i would say it's really hard to find places that have all the things
check all your boxes like it's like dating you're looking for a partner to check all your boxes
and very few options you actually end up with a partner that checks all your
boxes the point is sometimes it just takes that one thing to really make you fall in love and
you'll overlook the annoying things like the heat like the heat like the heat it's hot here
we really like it here but only time will tell if this place will end up being home
right now we've got a few things to sort out back in chicago some things possibly pending in oaxaca
so let us know what you think based off of what you heard do you think that this is a good place
i mean lots of other people have moved here and ultimately it's an individual decision
but let us know what your thoughts are if especially if you weren't super familiar
with merida before this we look forward to reading your comments so yeah thank you so
much for watching stay tuned because in our next video we are gonna go house hunting apartments
condos and give you guys prices just to give you an idea of how much money that costs so stay tuned
ciao