In Mérida, in the Yucatan, people dance in the streets. Every Sunday evening. Auto traffic is banned around the great main plaza all day; by dusk, when the afternoon’s stream of singers and performers has called it quits, music continues and couples are ballroom dancing in the street, right in front of city hall.

Families flock to Mérida’s Plaza Mayor for people-watching and impromptu theater. (Photo by Jane Durrell)

Mérida’s Plaza Mayor is in fact one of the great urban spaces of my experience. Activity peaks on the weekends with market booths on every side, but it never wants for people or a breeze. Classically laid out with symmetrical walkways, many benches, closely trimmed small trees and wide-spreading large ones, the Plaza lends itself to impromptu theater. On the Saturday afternoon when I arrived there were balloon sellers and musicians. Three clowns and a girl from the audience were having fun in the center of a circle of on-lookers.

My first night was at the Del Gobernador, a pleasant, serviceable hotel, but because I like a place with individuality I moved next day to the Hotel Dolores Alba. Its large entrance courtyard is rimmed on two sides by an arcade sheltering small tables, caned rocking chairs, and walls hung with a startling line of large, full-color reproductions of Frida Kahlo self-portraits. Before long I was in conversation with another guest, Marcia, from Oakland, Calif. I mentioned that I like quirky hotels. “You’ve come to the right place,” she replied.

After shopping at Plaza Mayor’s shopping booths, onlookers stop to take in one of several ongoing free performances. (Photo by Jane Durrell)

Marcia and I later did a couple of day trips together, to Dzibilchaltún, a spacious archeological site with Spanish ruins as well as Mayan ones and quite a good little museum, and to Izamal, a town where all the buildings are painted yellow and white—like an answer back to the sun.

Marcia also introduced me to La Casa de Frida restaurant, where the duck mole is excellent and so is the almond tart. The Yucatan, cut off from the rest of Mexico by mountains and bad roads but connected to Europe by the sea, has a cuisine related to but distinct from standard Mexican fare. Less in-your-face spicy, it incorporates subtle blends as in fish touched with garlic, pork or chicken pibil (marinated in Seville orange juice and more), and my favorite, sopa de lima: turkey-stock soup with shredded turkey or chicken, fried tortilla strips, and lime juice.

A pleasure of Mérida is the abundance of entertainment. I heard the Orquesta Sinfonica de Yucatan in the splendid Beaux Arts Teatro Jose Peon Contreras, vocalists in the new Olympia Cultural Center, and saw the Folklorico Ballet at the University de Yucatan, all within walking distance of the Plaza.

Besides Marcia, my companion in Mérida was John L. Stephens who visited nearly 170 years ago and wrote a marvelous account, Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan. Stephens and his two companions were the first to apply anything resembling archeological skills to studying the mysterious and amazing Mayan ruins.

Making inland Mérida one’s base means bypassing Cancun’s razzle-dazzle and giving up the beach, but like Stephens I found Mérida an excellent place. It gets hot there; go in the winter months.