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By Jeremy Carter - Guest blogger traveling in Merida, Mexico.
In the past three weeks, I've seen – and traveled in – nearly every type of transportation there is in Merida and the state of Yucatan. Here in the city you can take a nice, air-conditioned cab from one end of the city to the other for about $5 US (including tip), or you can take a first-class charter bus to nearby archaeological sites for less than $10 round trip, or you can take a combi – a 12-passenger van that's been converted to fit as many people as possible – for even less. You can also buy a round-trip ticket to Progreso (a port town 25 minutes north of Merida) for about $2.50 US. These buses range from fairly new charter buses with air conditioning to older charter buses where the only air conditioning is provided by opening the windows. When it's nearly 100 degrees out, the resulting breeze is anything but cool, but it's either that or bake inside the bus with no air circulating. In downtown Merida, there are horse drawn carriages for tours, and in the smaller towns in Yucatan the most common form of transportation is the trici-taxi, which looks like a cross between a bicycle and a rickshaw. I've yet to take one of these, but next time…definitely!
And then, there are the city buses. These range from new, air-conditioned mass-transportation buses like you see in many US cities to rickety school buses with hard plastic seats and no shocks. It took me more than two weeks to figure out the bus system here, as it's not terribly standardized due to the fact that several companies offer the bus service. Each route has a number and a name, but don't count on either appearing on the window. Eventually you learn which buses will take you downtown, and to get back home you learn that the buses for each route leave from a specific place, although the signs marking these points are handwritten on cardboard and not posted in the most conspicuous places. Instead of being annoying, it's another humorous and charming example of the very relaxed way of life here in Mexico.
Today, my classmate Amy and I experienced a combination of these modes of transportation. After taking a city bus downtown, we crammed into a combi with 16 other people to go to Oxkutzcab, a small town a little over an hour from Merida. Here the flat terrain gave way to the first hills I've seen in a month. In Oxkutzcab we took another combi to Loltun, a series of the largest caves on the peninsula. Here, archaeologists have discovered traces of human existence dating back 7,000 years, including bones, sculptures, and paintings and carvings on the walls. The words "lol" and "tun" mean flower and stone, respectively, and many people say the caves take their name from two side-by-side columns (stalactites and stalagmites that join to form a large post) that seem to say "lol" and "tun" when struck with a fist.
To return to Oxkutzcab, our guide told us to just wait by the road and eventually another combi would come by. Aside from a house (apparently abandoned) across the street, the ticket booth and shop at the caves were the only signs of human existence within eyesight, but we waited by the road nonetheless. Many cars and trucks passed by, but no combis. After about 30 minutes, a farmer of about 70 years or older stopped and offered us a ride. Amy sat in the front and chatted with him, while I sat in the back of the truck with the hoes and water bottles. When we got back to Oxkutzcab, we walked around town for a bit, then hopped a combi to Ticul, where we took a first-class bus back to Merida for around $3.50 US.
While Loltun itself was beautiful, it was the experience of riding in the combis, exploring the town of Oxkutzcab and – most of all – hopping a ride with the farmer that made this day so incredible and gave us our best glimpse so far of Mexican life outside the city.
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