Merida Mexico Gallery

The city, the ruins east and south of it, the cenotes underneath it and the flamingo coast on either side. Every photograph here was taken by one of the operators who run these days, in the places those days actually go.

A whitewashed colonial church with a stepped bell gable in one of Mérida's barrios, behind an iron railing — One of the barrio churches that gave Mérida the name la Ciudad Blanca

An aisle of lunch counters inside a Mérida market, diners on red stools at the tables — The lunch counters inside the market, which is where the food walks eat

Three tacos of cochinita pibil topped with pickled red onion, with lime wedges alongside — Cochinita pibil with pickled red onion — the dish the whole region is known for

A Yucatecan table laid with a pot of stew, tortillas, salsas and pickled onion in small dishes — A table laid for a cooking class: the salsas come out before anything else does

A plate of shredded meat with pickled onion and tomato beside a bowl of broth — Lunch at the cenotes, included on most of the swimming days

El Castillo, the stepped pyramid at Chichén Itzá, standing on open grass under a blue sky — El Castillo at Chichén Itzá, 30 metres of it, on 120 kilometres of flat limestone

El Castillo seen across the main plaza at Chichén Itzá with a visitor in the foreground for scale — The same pyramid from the plaza, with a person in shot for the scale of it

The rows of carved stone columns beside the Temple of the Warriors at Chichén Itzá — The Group of a Thousand Columns, which most day trips walk straight past

The Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal, its rounded sides rising above the trees — The Pyramid of the Magician — the only Maya pyramid built with rounded sides

Uxmal from the air, the Nunnery Quadrangle and the Governor's Palace set in dense low forest — Uxmal from above: the quadrangles are the point here, not one pyramid

The long facade of the Governor's Palace at Uxmal on its raised platform — The Governor's Palace, 100 metres of Puuc mosaic on a raised platform

The blue arcaded building of the Choco-Story museum opposite Uxmal, with agaves planted in front — Choco-Story, across the road from the Uxmal gate

The stepped and carved stone facade of a building at Kabah with a visitor sitting on the lower course — Kabah, twenty minutes further down the Puuc route and almost empty

The Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal framed by a Maya corbelled arch — The corbelled arch: no keystone, no true arch, and it has held since the 900s

The circular stone platform in the middle of Cenote Suytún, lit by the shaft of light through the cave roof — Cenote Suytún and its stone platform, the most photographed cenote in the Yucatán

A cavern cenote with a stalactite column dropping to the water and a timber walkway around the edge — A column that took the roof's whole weight before anyone was here to see it

Cenote Suytún seen from above, one person sitting alone on the stone platform — Get there first and the platform is yours; get there at eleven and it is a queue

The collapsed roof of a cenote seen from inside, a tree growing through the opening with roots hanging to the water — A collapsed roof, a tree in the gap, and roots all the way down to the water

A wide open cenote with turquoise water and a timber stair and gate at the entrance — An open cenote at Homún, timber stair and all

A cavern cenote with clear pale water running back under a low limestone roof — Clear enough that the floor reads as shallow when it is not

A freediver underwater in a deep blue cenote below a roof of stalactites — Below the surface: the same fresh water that runs under the whole peninsula

Swimmers in the shallow clear water of a cavern cenote under a roof of stalactites — A private cenote near Izamal, which is what a small group buys you

A flamingo coming in to land on shallow water at Celestún, another wading below it — Flamingos at Celestún — in numbers from mid-November, patchy the rest of the year

A tight flock of flamingos feeding in shallow water at Celestún — The flock feeding: heads down, filtering the shallows

Flamingos standing and flying over the Ría Celestún with the mangrove treeline behind — The Ría Celestún, a biosphere reserve rather than a bird park

A small covered boat coming down a narrow channel walled by mangroves at Celestún — The mangrove channel the boats run up, out of the wind

The salt pans at Las Coloradas from the air, pink and white rectangles against the Gulf — Las Coloradas: a working salt operation, and the pink is the brine shrimp in it

Pink water meeting a white sand bank at Las Coloradas under a blue sky — Pink water on one side of the bank, the Gulf on the other

A timber boardwalk running along the edge of the pink salt flats at Las Coloradas — The boardwalk: you look at the water, you do not get into it

Go and see it

Every day trip and food walk out of the city, with the price, the length and what the fare covers.

See Merida Mexico tours Compare Merida Mexico tours

Where these were taken

The white church is a Mérida barrio church, five minutes from the Plaza Grande; the market aisle is one of the three the food walks cross, and the plate of cochinita pibil came off one of its counters. Everything with a pyramid in it is either Chichén Itzá, two hours east, or Uxmal and Kabah, an hour and a quarter south. The cenotes are at Homún, Valladolid and Santa Bárbara, and the pink water is Las Coloradas, on the north coast three and a half hours away. The map and distances page puts all of them in order.