Travel to the Yucatan Penninsula of Mexico – Amateur Traveler Episode 163 Transcript

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Travel to the Yucatan Penninsula of Mexico – Episode 163 Transcript

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Zora: …and later, which, in itself, is a totally remarkable thing. Like, if you’re interested in urban development and urban planning, Cancun is totally fascinating. The more you look, especially in the hotel zone, the more you’ll see that it’s as used by local Mexicans as it is by tourists, and there are so many great little, like, tiny hidden away fish places and things like that in the hotel zone, which at first glance just looks like tourist mayhem, but actually it’s a pretty surprisingly, like, integrated and mixed situation there. Anyway, so Cancun. Cancun, compared to Merida, is a little bit frenetic, and Merida is sort of the ultimate ‘tranquilo’ city, like, more than a million people live there and you would never know it, it feels like a small town, once you get down the main Plaza. I would also describe the Yucatan as romantic. There’s a beautiful, beautiful style of music that is particular to the Yucatan. The Yucatan was very influenced by Cuban music, and there’s these old romantic ballads that are just, sort of, heartbreakingly beautiful, and people singing them all the time. You can hire your own romantic crooner trio to serenade you, if you want. They’re all over the place. And it’s not like a touristy thing where they berate you in restaurants, they’re just there, ready to sing incredibly romantic music at the drop of a hat, and, sort of, in that romantic vein, you see older couples, and young couples, like, everybody is always, sort of, sitting on benches staring dreamily into each other’s eyes, so, if you are going, I always warn people who are going down there with like platonic friends, just, you know, proceed with caution! This even may get to you. ‘Tranquilo’, romantic, I would also say really rooted, like I said, the Mayan culture is still so strong there and there’s this tremendous pride in that, that really influences everything, and just gives a very good feeling to the place, and the continuity of history is really impressive, it’s really, really rich, and I feel so lucky to have been given what started out as a slightly random assignment, and feel so lucky to have been able to get to know a place so well through my research, through my guide book research, and I can’t wait to go back! I think I’m going back, probably, next March will be my next trip so I’m really looking forward to it.

Chris: Our guest again has been Zora O’Neill, talking about the Yucatan and her new book ‘The Rough Guide to the Yucatan’. Zora, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your love of the Yucatan.

Zora: Oh, my pleasure. I just hope I inspire some other people to go and enjoy it as much as I have.

Chris: And I’ll have links in the show notes to Zora’s various blogs, I think you’ve got three or four as I recall from our last talk.

Zora: Oh yes, yeah. Like I said, ‘Rough Guide to the Yucatan ‘ is the one. If you do buy the book, definitely go to the website roughguidetotheyucatan.com and look for, sort of, major corrections. Fortunately, there’s only one thing up there right now, since the book just came out November 3rd, but there’s always that lag between doing the research for the book. The last time I was down there was February. There’s always that lag, between researching the book and the book coming out, where something goes wrong, and I’m like “Oh, the restaurant closed, it was so good!” so there’s that, and then my personal website rovinggastronome.com but I trust, so.

Chris: Zora, thanks for being on the show.

Zora: Great. Thank you so much.

with thanks to Cindy the Amateur Traveler intern for the transcription

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