Mexican life in Merida

Since the last blog entry we had one more police encounter - parking by a yellow sidewalk (which everyone else also does), which resulted in a confiscated license plate and a fine of 253 pesos - about 13 euro. No bribing suggestions this time...

We have otherwise taken it rather chill (as it is fever temperature outside), found an amazing ice cream place as well as a great gym. And not to forget, Alma lost her first tooth! We have some lovely neighbors when it comes to take away ceviche and cheesecake which makes life very easy. Unfortunately the girls don't really appreciate the Mexican flavours, but at least they eat their havregrynsgröt in the morning, so at least one decent meal/ day.

Familjefys at Qhealth

Merida parque Centenario. Many animals, unfortunately not too much space.

At the beach in Chicxulub where we gathered a bag of trash way too quickly

View from the lunch restaurant

Curious mapaches - tvättbjörnar - in the wild

Going local - meeting the police twice

Yesterday, we moved to another location. Merida in the Western part of the Yucatan peninsula would be our new home for the coming week. As the journey would take us close to four hours, we decided to have some breaks in the middle. First stop-over was Coba, a wonderful little town about 1 hrs drive  Puerto Aventuras. In Coba we rented a few bikes and cycled through lush forests and visited some amazing Maya buildings. We couldn’t resist climbing a very steep 42 meters high temple resulting in some amazing views over the peninsula. A truly wonderful experience! After that stop-over we had lunch in Valladolid and ate some great food. Yet another great recommendation from our LP guide book! 

When we arrived at our new house, the girls took a short dive in the pool before we were headed to a supermarket to buy dinner. Our handy GPS (Sygic, also working when not connected to the internet!) send us through all kind of little streets until we ended on a junction where we were the only ones that didn’t have a traffic light. Weird. Just when we wanted to start driving we saw a police car coming. Let’s just wait to be certain. He however stopped (although he had green light) and yelled something through his speakers. Mhhhhh, let’s drive. When we hit the road, he signaled that we needed to stop. We obviously had been driving the wrong way in a one lane street and it would cost us about 125 Euro. The police officer would take our license plate and we could pick it up Monday morning at a police station about 30 min drive out of town. We ended up in another weird situation where we both tried to settle it in another way whereby we didn’t dare to make the first move. He in the end suggested that it would be waste of both time and money to handle this the proper way, so we could also just skip it and compensate him in another way. This we should do in the parking of the supermarket 150 m further up the road. We have a special place in our car where we stack some 20 dollar bills and it indeed this did the trick. We felt happy and disillusioned at the same time. Good we skipped the big fine and hassle but sad to realize the system was indeed as corrupt as its reputation. 

Today, we visited the wonderful old city center of Merida. After visiting the city architectural highlights, we decided to go to the market to look for food and to get some shade. With Alma on my shoulders an Junia by the hand, I walked to the market. When I checked for Anna and Kiara a few minutes later, I couldn't see them anywhere. We waited for a few minutes and than walked back to where we had last seen each other. We waited and waited but no Anna. Fortunately, a clown show was just about to start so the girls had some entertainment. When that show was over, still no signs of Anna. So after one hour of waiting, checking my phone and getting slightly concerned, I decided to ask a police officer how to proceed. I showed and send a picture, gave personal details which he shared that with the Merida police force. All available officers would now be looking for a tall Swede with a toddler on her stomach. We continued to wait until the good news would come. After almost 2. hours waiting, a Mexican number called me. It was Anna, she was 'waiting' for me at the other side of the plaza. The unification was a mixture of happyness and frustration. How was it possible that we both had such a different approaches to find each other. I waited at the place where we last met. Anna waited at the place where we were supposed to meet. Needless to say we made some firm agreements how to handle such situations next time. The Merida police force was of great help and our faith in the police corps was slightly restored. 

Tonight, Anna told me that the some English police officers had also been looking for her while she was cycling   with her mother in the UK 24 years ago. At that time, a mobile telephone had not been invented though ..... Apart from the various police encounters, we are still having a wonderful time in an amazing country. Let's however hope that we stick with these two 'going local' experiences. 

Riviera Maya

Hola!

The Van der Meers made it to Latinolandia again, even if Alma's fountain vomiting the day before departure made us question the trip. Luckily she recovered quickly. Instead Kiara took over the sick stafettpinne and has had fever, cough and a runny nose since we landed basically, but she is still in a surprisingly good mood. I don't really get where she and Alma get their energy from though, as they basically refuse to eat anything but ketchup.

The journey went very smooth with minimal screaming on the plane (well, we've been through  worse...) As often in this lovely part of the world we got the VIP kids line, meaning we were first through security. Now that didn't matter so much as our two backpacks were the last to pop out, and it

 took an eternity to get the rental car. After about an hours drive we arrived to our home for the week, midnight Mexican time, 6 AM Swedish time. Considering we woke up at 5 the day before and hadn't slept a minute since, we weren't really fresh. Interesting how basic mathematics is absolutely impossible in that state.

There are many positive things when it comes to travelling with children, but the first morning in a country with time difference is definitely not one of them. (The curiosity for new kinds of food is also not on the top list.) Today, day 4, we could sleep in until 6, a true bliss.

We have a fantastic home exchange in Puerto Aventuras, south of Cancun. It is a bit like a perfect little tourist village, all super neat with anything you could possibly want, from golf course to swimming with dolphins. Today we went 20 minutes north to Playa del Carmen which was a bit shocking more in your face touristy, here in Puerto Aventuras there are more retired peoples and families with children. Perfect for us!

The other day we had some world class snorkling in Akumal, about 15 min south. First we went snorkling in a lagoon so filled with fish you sometimes couldn't see the bottom. Kiara was terrified of all fish and did not dare to dip a toe, but Junia and Alma floated happily around. Then we went to the beautiful beach of Akumal, and just followed the ants line of excursion tourists without really knowing what to expect in these crowded waters, zick zacking between the diveboats. Well, after some 100-150 m of snorkling we came to the popular lunch buffet for sea turtles, and could just float around a couple of these beautiful giants watching them munching on the vegetation at the bottom.

Last week

And even this fantastic trip, which seemed to last for an eternity in the beginning, has reached its’ final week. It is with mixed feelings we’ll be heading home Wednesday, home is always home, Friskis is always Friskis and a well equipped supermarket is also high on the wish list, but swopping the whole day together for seeing my kids about two hours/day is something I don’t look forward to as much.

Anyhow, this final week we have another fantastic home exchange with a Canadian expat family. Their kids are 3 and 7 and Junia and Alma have looked forward to this stay basically the whole trip - all the toys!!! We spent the day with our hosts today, and had some great conversations and play time. This final week is more vacation-ish than before - playing in the pool, at the beach, just chilling... in a fully equipped home. Fantastic.

One of many toys... an electric Corvette

One afternoon we had a trampoline park basically just to ourselves. Exhausting!

More plastic ..... WTF

Further to my blog post about plastic rubbish some time ago, there is something that really surprised us the first time we grilled sausages. It was in Costa Rica and we used an outside grill. There was not a lot of light when I unpacked the sausages and put them on the grill. After a while, they looked very well and I served them with pride as they were not black as coal. When we cut them however, it appeared that there was still a plastic coating around them! Plastic around a sausages? Who comes up with that and why?  We assumed we bought the wrong sausages and carefully removed the plastic, which survived the barbecue heat surprisingly well. It was a little weird/ disgusting to eat them as you never know. 

When we bought some meat a few weeks later in Panama, we had already forgotten the plastic and just bought some good looking sausages. Only after frying them in a pan, we noticed that they were covered in plastic as well. This time, the plastic was difficult to removed so we threw most of it away. What a waste!!

When we bought some sausages a few days ago, we found out that that almost all sausages are covered in plastic. Just some very cheap American hotdogs come without. So before we started frying them, we carefully removed the plastic after figuring out how best to do that (google/ YouTube among others). 

No comments ....;-))

All the plastic waste...

Yes!! Hutspot, also in the tropics 😀. 

The one that is challenging her bigger sisters who eats most sausages. 

When we buy candy, we avoid wrapped candy in a bag as it is just unnecessary plastic waste. Unfortunately that is exactly the type of candy you find a lot in CR and Panama. It probably has something to do with the low income (less money to spend so therefore buy smaller portions). The result is candy wraps everywhere. Completely unnecessary!!

On a more positive note, the sausages score for this evening. Alma 2, Kiara 2,  Junia 1 1/2, Anna 1 and justus 1/2.  This evening, I found 1/2 a sausage under Alma’s chair so I believe she is cheating....

And no, we are not big meat consumers as we rarely eat meat so we have that environmental challenge covered very well. 

Panama City 2nd visit

Our second to last week (where did time fly?) was spent in Panama City. A capital the size of Stockholm, with an old town, waterfront (no swimming though - too polluted) and lots of skyscrapers. 

Here we spent our time hiking (great rainforest parque metropolitana), eating (malls might be terribly boring but they have good food courts) and also enjoyed the good biodiversity museum. Our favourite animal is now the ground sloth, 6 m high when standing. Unfortunately it was extinct some 10 000 year back. 

Half the week we stayed at the Causeway, close to some good activities and with a fantastic view. We had an armadillo living across the road and a sloth a few 100 m away, and the old town was about 6 dollars/ 10 min away with a taxi. As we also would like to experience the city pulse we moved in to the Trump tower the few last nights. Anything can be found with Airbnb... Apparently the Donald sold the tower, so we were luckily not supporting him. There the girls were thrilled about the pool complex, and their mother about the variety of fika that could be purchased within walking distance.

View from our first place

Spot the sloth

Turning torso Panama style

View from the Trump tower (half way up)

El Valle

After Santa Fe, we went to El Valle and that little town, located in a crater of an old volcano, was yet again another amazingly beautiful place that we visited during this fantastic holiday. The drive up was an interesting one as the road up to the edge of the crater was like a go-carting track with many serpentine curves right through the jungle. Fortunately, none of us got car sick (this time.)

The Airbnb location had a pool and that was something we had all looked forward to as in Santa Fe, we had been without a shower for the entire the duration of our stay. Washing ourselves with warm (cooked on our stove) water from pots and pans was not our ideal way of having a holiday. That the water was a little cold didn't matter that much. 

Although Anna and I do like to hike it is not always easy to get the girls enthusiastic (which is logic when they are at this age). They do join when we promise them some kind of 'carrot', whether it is a nice waterfall to swim in, an Oreo cookie (Junia) or a salty cheese snack (Alma) in advance. So we usually have those cookies and snacks on stock, at least as long as Anna and I haven't finished them the night before. 

El Valle was a great place for hiking. One of the greatest hikes we did this holiday was a hike to the edge of the crater. What started as a short 10 min stroll to a waterfall ended up to be a 90 min hardcore hike upwards. Junia managed to get up to the top all by her own, which was truly impressive! Kiara sat very comfortably in her mother's 'ergo baby' and Alma sat on my shoulders for the last part of the hike. The view from the top was stunning and even the girls seemed to enjoy it. It was a great family achievement and it made a nice picture moment. 

One happy family!

At times, it was rather windy and rainy. 

We didn't do much with Christmas this year. It was a little odd that we didn't have 'physical' presents but we all (some more than others...) realised that the biggest present we got was the fact that we were on an amazing journey with the five of us. Christmas Eve dinner was mashed potatoes, broccoli, frozen vegetable mix and supermarket grilled chicken. Not in accordance to a Hasselrot tradition but it truly was a feast for all of us.  

At Christmas Day, Junia decided that she wanted to spend Mormors Christmas gift money on a canopy zip lining experience. Although she didn't realize what she was up to, she was extremely enthusiastic. Anna and I were both impressed by her fearless attitude. When Junia finished, she admitted that she was little nervous when she saw how high it was, but she was looking forward to the Leksand sommarland day this summer where we promised her another zip line tour. 

We finished our El Valle visit by visiting a mud bath/ natural spa.