Merida

When we arrived in Merida the bus took us down a maze of tiny streets.  When we got off the bus I was surprised to see a bus guy get out from under/inside the bus.  I guess they have a sleeping compartment down there.

Merida was a rough looking city.  It had the appearance of being really cool at one time but seemed rather run down when the bus pulled into it.  There were police with machine guns in random places and a couple that appeared to be guarding the bus station.

I had a half-baked scheme that we could pay a taxi to drive us around and show us the city.  We talked to the girl running the taxi ticket booth at the bus station and she said she'd ask a driver how much it would cost to do that.  We waited five or ten minutes and then all of a sudden a taxi drives up like a bolt of lightning and stops in front of the ticket booth with a cloud of dust trailing behind.
Out of the taxi jumps the most stereotypical latino dude with aviator sun glasses.  Right then Emma and I looked at each other and said "that's our taxi". 

He was pretty cool and drove us to all the historic places and stopped so we could look around and take photos.  We drove around for an hour and a half and then had him take us to an authentic Mayan restaurant.  All in all it worked out good as the taxi fare only cost $25 (not bad for a private tour).

We decided to get the hell out of Merida before the sun went down and take our chances with our next destination:  Campeche.