Day trippin' to Progreso

I had dallied with the idea of going to Valladolid for one night, before heading on to Cancun for my final night in Mexico, but when it came to it, I decided that Merida would be my last stop. I've seen so many beautiful cities in Mexico, and so much wonderful colonial architecture, that I felt Valladolid could wait until next time. Plus, after 3 days of emails back and forth, I had finally managed to book onto a tour with Sergio's Tours in Progreso.

They had been recommended to me by one of the guys at the first hostel in Merida, and finally on my final day they had a tour confirmed. I was looking forward to have a reason to go to Progreso, a beautiful beach town and frequent port for the many cruise ships touring the Caribbean. It's for this reason that Progreso has the longest pier in the world, coming in at a whole 4 miles in length.

This time I made my way to the bus terminal of Autoprogreso, a bus company dedicated to the route between Merida and Progreso, with buses leaving every 15 minutes, a return journey costing a mere 36 pesos. An hour later and I was booked in with Sergios Tours and still had an hour to go before our departure. So I went for a wander.

First impressions of Progreso? A beautiful white beach, a very long pier, and a lot of shops and restaurants geared towards the cruise ship tourists. It was impossible to walk more than 5 metres without being offered something "Lady, you want to eat? Lady, you want a t shirt? Lady, you want a henna tattoo?"

The best example of the commercialism driving this town came when I was sat on the beach having a drink, and a lady came by selling mango. I asked how much it was and she said "cinco", i.e. 5. Wow, I thought, that's cheap! Until I realised that she meant 5 US dollars! Which is about 100 pesos. For a cup of sliced mango, this is a lot. When I said no, and said how much in pesos, she said, "ahhh, en pesos? 25!". That was more like it!

I don't mean to be cynical, as I know that livelihoods depend on this tourism, but I was still surprised at the level of inflation!

Anyway, it was time to join the tour. When I sign up for something on my own, there's always that question in the back of my mind, of who else is going to be on the tour. Today it was myself, a Mexican man and his two teenage sons and a Mexican girl travelling solo. Yay, a potential friend!

Our first stop was a cenote. By this time Gaby and I were already firm friends, and although not necessary for this type of tour, it would be really nice to have someone to share the day with.

We jumped on a boat, which crossed a lagoon to take us over to the cenote. As the boat pulled in we were greeted by lots of little raccoons, seemingly hoping for a little snack from us!

It was hard to resist these little faces!

There were a number of cenotes to choose from but our guide gave us his recommendation before leaving us to float around for an hour or so.

The pink salt lakes at Xtampu Salar.

Back in the minivan, the next stop was the Xtampu Salar, a salt lagoon east of Progreso. Our guide explained how over a period of time, the saltwater in these lagoons evaporates, the first stage being a foamy residue, before the water evaporates completely, leaving behind the salt, which eventually forms crystals.

As the water evaporates a foamy residue is left behind...

Eventually the salt crystals are formed.

This is how the Mayans produced salt for trade and food preservation, in years gone by.

My new amiga, Gaby.

The pink colour of the lagoons is caused by various algae and plankton, which become concentrated as the water evaporates. Fun fact - flamingos turn pink because of the beto-carotene found in these organisms,  which form part of the flamingo diet! A well- nourished flamingo will be darker and pinker in colour than one that is undernourished.

We also made a quick stop to see some flamingos. 

Our next stop was the Xcambo ruins. Whilst perhaps less impressive than many of its local counterparts, it was nice to learn about the Mayans that inhabited this area, their advanced methods for producing salt and how they used it in their day to day lives.

The view of Xcambo from the principal structure.

Finally, we drove to a beach resort for 2 hours on the beach. I had asked if I could skip this part, as I would have much preferred to spend this time in Progreso, but unfortunately not. So Gaby and I grabbed a table and some shade and took it in turns to go for dips in the blue and very shallow water.

Picturesque, though just a few feet away the beach was littered with rubbish.

The water here is so shallow that it's possible to wade out for a couple of hundred metres.

When we got back to Progreso Gaby introduced me one of the many yucateca delicacies, the marquesita! I'm really missing good old street tacos but this very thin waffle, sprinkled with cheese (a good amount of it, on Gaby's request!) and rolled up like a cigar, was a very tasty snack!

Una marquesita

We decided to grab some dinner before heading back to Merida, and the Mexican food epic continued! We headed to Eladio's, and ordered salbutes, panuchos and these deep fried, meatball stuffed with cheese type things.

A delicious salbute

After 7 weeks in Mexico I am still lacking tekkers for eating tostada type foods!

I can't remember the name of these tasty, deep-fried, cheese stuffed balls.

We couldn't finish it all!

Unbeknown to us, the restaurant would also bring us a variety of enchiladas and tacos on the house, so that by the time our order arrived we were already pretty stuffed!

With that our day trip to Progreso came to an end - Gaby came back to Merida with me and when we said goodbye and goodnight we agreed that our casas are each others casas, for when I go back to DF and Gaby comes to London!