Our new second home - Mérida!

Next up was Mérida. We started our trip to the capital of Yucatán without any big expectations.

Originally planned for just one night, our stay turned into nearly 3.5 weeks - with a short break for a trip to Isla Mujeres (post coming soon).

In Mérida, we found our new second home. We had a wonderful time at Hostik Hostal, which had only recently opened. We got along so well with the staff, volunteers, and guests that we didn't really want to leave. The hostel even organized a Mexican night with a cooking class and a birthday piñata for Stefan (a Mexican tradition where cardboard animals filled with candy are blindfoldedly destroyed to get to the sweets - in Stefan's case, it was not an animal but a huge beer bottle).

In addition, there are many different places to visit in Mérida and the surrounding area. For example, we went on a typical sightseeing tour (such a beautiful city), visited a few cenotes (reached only by a small horse-drawn train in the middle of the jungle), explored the Maya ruins in Uxmal, and visited the nearby beaches in Sisal (where we saw hundreds of flamingos) and Progreso (we were invited to a friend's house right on the beach and spent a whole day there with barbecue and sunset). We also accompanied the hostel owner to a baseball game in Mérida, which was quite a different stadium experience than what we are used to in Leipzig. And last but not least, we took a six-day salsa course (we can happily send a video upon request), which was very challenging but also a lot of fun.