Tuesday 15 July 2003
Our second day in Villahermosa turned out to be really good. I guess we spotted the only great place in town: the museum and park called “Parque-Museo La Venta”, which was created by the poet Carlos Perchelli. This is a small zoo and a park with Maya sculptures brought here from the northern Mexican coast on the poet’s initiative, which saved them from erosion and oblivion.
The task moving these colossal Olmec heads must have been vast considered that roads were not asphalted in the 1950’s. The Dane Frans Blom made the first observations in 1925 and his work was continued by archaeologists from nearby universities and in 1940 Matthew Stirling found five more Olmec heads made in basalt, the largest more than 2 meter high and weighting 24 tons. It still remains a mystery how the Mayas were able to move these colossal statues more than 100 km without knowledge of the wheel.
The small zoo was a lovely jungle with funny animals typical for the Tabasco province. We saw lazy spider monkeys, jaguars, pumas, toucans and crocodiles.
When we left, we spotted a tiny humming-bird and later a wild monkey in the three just above us outside the zoo. The humming-bird was so small and impressive fast. It was the first time for us to see one of those. What a thrill!
Later we had to wait in the small but cooled airport. The plane was delayed, but we did not know for how long as no information was given and the staff was unable to tell anything about when we could expect to departure. This was frustrating and luckily we only had to wait for one hour before we were airborne in an old DC-9 that stayed the course.
The city of Merida was an old colonial town that through the years have fought for its independence also in “The Castle War” in the 1840’s. The city is wide with more than 700.000 citizens and no really tall buildings. Almost all houses are one or two flats and disappointing worn down.
The area around the Plaza is quite nice with the cathedral and the square with green trees. Horse-drawn carriages were for hire and the horses had a special diaper to avoid messing up on the streets.
Merida was hot and ungraceful and not a place that encouraged longer stays. As we had plenty of time we decided to stay over for a night. We economized on the hotel and found a place called “Casa Becil” with a very nice English-speaking owner.
He regretted that the last room available had a noisy fan. After all it was only for a single night, we thought, but the night felt very long. The fan squeaked all night and the madras was way too soft, giving us a bad back the next morning.
If we had tried out the beds before accepting the room, we would probably turned it down and go to see the competitor opposite the street. But courteous attendance from the owner convinced us and we were tired.