Calesas

Looking to do something unique? Something romantic? Something relaxing? Well, take a tour in a calesa, or horse and buggy. Two routes are offered, the traditonal and the double. The traditonal trip, which lasts about an hour, circles the Main Plaza, heads up Calle 60 passing the Hidalgo, Madre, Santa Lucía and Santa Ana Parks, turns onto the Paseo Montejo passing the twin houses, the museum, and the Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Justo Sierra monuments, then up to the huge, impressive, detailed Monument to the Flag, where you can stop and get off to take pictures, then return to the Plaza.

The double trip lasts longer and does the previous route plus Ave. Reforma, which goes past the bullfight ring, then to García Ginerés and the lush, tropical, four-block Las Americas Park, down the tree-canopied Avenida Colón to the Paseo Montejo and back to the Plaza.

Trips can be taken either in the daytime or at night. In the daytime, calesas are around the Plaza to the north of the Cathedral and at the entrance to the Museum on the Paseo Montejo. In the evening they are by the Plaza and the Montejo House and by the Hyatt and Conquistador hotels.

You can also negotiate your own trip. You can take a calesa ride from dinner downtown back to your hotel if it isn't too far away.

Calesa rides are best taken at night or on Sunday morning when traffic is light in Mérida. That is when the wonderful clip-clop sound of the horse's hooves can best be appreciated, and when you can best appreciate the slow pace of the horse, which is a marked contrast to the faster pace of cars and buses. Sit back and relax, look around you at the colonial buildings, and you can easily begin to imagine what Mérida was like one hundred years ago. 

The traditional trip costs 250 pesos and the double 500 pesos. And don't forget a tip for the horse!