{"id":4785,"date":"2016-01-04T13:07:43","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T20:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/?p=4785"},"modified":"2016-09-08T16:00:31","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T13:00:31","slug":"off-to-merida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/off-to-merida\/","title":{"rendered":"Off to M\u00e9rida!"},"content":{"rendered":"

My trip to M\u00e9rida is booked! It was hard to get a nearly perfect flight, so I’m going later than planned, leaving February 19th and coming back February 28th.<\/p>\n

I wanted to fly around my work schedule, so that meant I could only fly on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday (giving me Monday as a buffer to settle in or in case there is a flight delay). I’m leaving on a Friday and coming back on a Sunday, so nine nights total. The other thing was that I didn’t want to have to overnight in DF (Mexico City) or get back to Mazatl\u00e1n after dark. Finally, I really preferred not to fly out before 8AM. Price ended up being my last consideration, but I did okay. I think it will come out to between 500CAD and 550CAD with the exchange rate.<\/p>\n

I used Sky Scanner<\/a> for the first time and it was worth it because it found flights on discount sites that weren’t available directly through the airline. I didn’t save any money, but I got a better choice of dates and times. My flight is with InterJet, but I booked through Travelocity.<\/p>\n

So I leave Maz at 3:05 p.m. local time, have a 1.5 hour layover in DF, and get to M\u00e9rida at 9:10 p.m. local time. I’ll take a taxi to my destination. My hosts (more below) are prepared that I might not get in till 11:00 p.m.<\/p>\n

For the trip home, I leave M\u00e9rida at 8:25 a.m., have a 3.5 hour layover in DF, and get home at 2:35 local time.<\/p>\n

After speaking with a few friends who have tons of experience flying out of Maz from Isla, I’m planning to leave my truck here, take the lancha to Maz, and grab a cab there to get me to the airport or investigate the possibility of a bus.<\/p>\n

I will get eight full days in M\u00e9rida, of which I will work for three. M\u00e9rida is on the same time zone as work, so that means I’ll be working 8:00 to 4:00 and so those days will be pretty much a write-off, but I should at least be able to enjoy a few evening hours out.<\/p>\n

Now, for housing. I really wanted to rent an apartment in a neighbourhood I might want to move to to get a feel for what life could be like for me in M\u00e9rida. I’d spent some time on TripAdvisor learning about the various neighbourhoods in M\u00e9rida and made a list of the neighbourhoods to investigate. One of the neighbourhoods at the top of my list had nearly the perfect place. All-in, it’s 32CAD per night. The only thing I’m not happy about, based on the pictures, is that it’s a boring white house like my casa here in Maz. I had hoped to find something more architecturally interesting. But it’s fine for a week. I’ll be choosier when I’m looking for a long-term residence!<\/p>\n

A couple of people asked me why I’m not driving or taking the bus. Here’s why:<\/p>\n

\"map\"<\/a><\/p>\n

M\u00e9rida is 2,500KM away. It would be like my driving 63% of the way back to Haven for just a week!<\/p>\n

Just for kicks, I checked out the bus option. It’s 26 hours and 2,000MX each way. So 52 hours of travel time for 4,000MXN total. For 2,500MXN (200CAD) more, I can get there and back in about 18 hours total travel time. Air travel is a wonderful option! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

There is tons to do around and outside M\u00e9rida, but I won’t be focused on cramming in too much tourism since I plan to move there full-time! Really, the purpose of this trip is to try out life in the city and focus on practical matters so I can hit the ground running when it comes time to searching for an apartment to rent long-term.<\/p>\n

Next project, wrapping my brain around my summer in Europe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My trip to M\u00e9rida is booked! It was hard to get a nearly perfect flight, so I’m going later than planned, leaving February 19th and coming back February 28th. I wanted to fly around my work schedule, so that meant I could only fly on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday (giving me Monday as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[815,895,14,635,814,3,894],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-4785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mazatlan","category-merida","category-mexico","category-north-america","category-sinaloa","category-travel","category-yucatan","tag-moving-to-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}