Now we are in the two months that no one loves in Merida. Contrary to the expectations of many visitors, April and May are our two hottest and driest months. Usually April and May are VERY hot, and there is not a cloud in the sky. In this hot season, we residents stay in the shade and look forward to June’s daily thunderstorms. By the time June comes around, the rains are so welcome. They drop the temperature and bring the trees and gardens back to life.

This year the dry season has been pushed off a bit by dramatic displays of lightning and two very heavy storms over the past few days. Best of all, these storms have brought pleasant cool evenings.

One of the greatest pleasures of Merida is spending the evening on a patio somewhere, dining under the stars. For this ritual, I suggest sitting outside at Hennessy’s Irish Bar, or at the roof-top bar at Rosas y Xocolate for views of Paseo Montejo. Enjoy a glass of wine or a cold beer as a way to stay cool as you enjoy the view!

Merida was just the subject of the popular New York Times travel series, 36 Hours In…, which you might enjoy:

36 Hours in Merida, Mexico

Let me take this opportunity to wish all our friends a very happy Holiday Season and say many thanks to all of you for your support, which has made 2011 another great year for all of us! We look forward to 2012, not the end of the world but, as our Maya friends living here have said all along, the beginning of a new and exciting cycle.

Unless there is some highly unusual weather pattern,  mornings will be sunny and bright… in other words, perfect weather for doing almost anything there is to do in Yucatan. It will be hot.. in the high 80s or mid- 90′s many days. And it may be a little humid. But the humidity here is nothing like I have experienced on the US Eastern seaboard.

Our very hot months are April and May when the heat can be scorching. You might even call that time of year the Yucatan summer.  But I have found that most visitors, are not uncomfortable in July, August and September in Yucatan.  As Yucatan has no standing water, other than fresh-water cenotes that are constantly being refreshed from underground, you will find surprisingly few mosquitoes. And the benefits of being here during this time far outweigh the drawbacks.

Rainy season is actually my favorite time of the year.  The heavy thunderstorms that we get on many afternoons around 4-5 PM drop the temperatures into the 80s or even the 70s in the evening. The countryside is lush and green, and the corn is “as high as an elephant’s eye”.

Best of all are the literally thousands of butterflies of all sizes and colors.  It is worth venturing out for a day in the country onto the smaller roads just to experience the butterflies.  While use of chemical fertilizers and weedkillers is growing, these  are generally only applied on a few small parcels of land. This leaves the vast majority of Yucatan chemical-free.  As agricultural plots are very small and cash is limited, I have never seem aerial spraying.

Growing up in England as a child, I remember the many butterflies most of all. It is a sadness and disappointment now to go back in summer and see very few of my beautiful friends, even though my parents live in the countryside.  On Yucatan’s back country roads, they rise up around you in clouds – yellow, brown, blue, black, big and small.  And the summertime is the best time to view them. Take a trip out to the countryside in the Yucatan and you’ll see what I mean.

Here in Yucatan, our bullfights are rather different – in most cases, the bulls are not killed.  The ring is built each year from poles and palm leaves provided by the townspeople. It is a communal event as different families from the village build their own sections, and then have the right to rent out the seats in their section.

Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday for two weeks we will have very loud dances  with very loud music from midnight to 5 a.m. with many voladores being set off. Voladores are those home-made bottle rockets which are sent up into the air with a big swoosh, and make a huge BANG. There won’t be much sleep to be had and much beer will be drunk during that time.  I thought you might want to share the fun by seeing my photos of the preparations….

Click here to see our Facebook photo gallery (even if you aren’t on Facebook…) of the preparations. And if you are on Facebook, “like” our page while you are there! We update our Facebook page often, including a new feature: weekly real estate specials, sometimes with significant price discounts!

Today Motul is a sleepier, smaller version of Merida. The town is home for people that either work in Merida or in one of the many maquiladoras in the surrounding countryside. The center of town boasts a park in the town square, a beautiful Franciscan monastery and church and a colonial city hall. The Felipe Carrillo Puerto museum faces the town market, which is also in the center of town.

As a colonial city, Motul still has many colonial buildings, some of which are coming up for sale. The city is small, with a population of about 21,000 people, but it has a bustling market, a large cathedral with many religious activities and events throughout the year as well as various stores and shops. Whereas, once upon a time, it may have been close to impossible for a foreigner to negotiate the purchase of a house in this area, those days are over and now we have seven listings in this fair city.

Here is a recent addition to our listings in Motul that is a lovely colonial building. Something similar in similar condition in Merida would easily cost three times as much. Here in Motul, you can still enjoy the renovation of a beautiful colonial building, and end up living in a lovely colonial city that is a hop, skip and a jump away from Merida, the capital of Yucatan.

Click here to read about an Old Palace for sale in Motul!