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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Nov. 2010 Where we stayed for our second visit...

On our second visit to Merida we stayed over on Calle 72 in a house called Casa Colibri. It was just up the road from Santiago (which we absolutely love) and we ended up eating on Santiago Plaza at least once a day. Those panuchos are something else.

The house we stayed in was another amazing house. This time a two storey colonial with an amazing upper patio that over looked the roof tops of the surrounding neighborhood. I actually fell asleep in that hammock on the first night and woke up at 3am.





We had a great time and really enjoyed having the master suite upstairs with its own outdoor seating area. The pool was nice and deep and long and caught just enough of the day's sun.

It was a great house with huge bedrooms and bathrooms and a great lounge room that opened out onto the sun and pool area. The road was a little too noisy but hey!





Here are some pics of the house and the downstairs rooms. Unfortunately, I can't find any pics of the master suite and bathroom upstairs. DOH!

 This was the little outdoor courtyard next to the pool an that tree was a sour-orange tree and they kept falling into the pool. We actually ate some and they were quite nice.

This was the guest room downstairs that was at the front of the house. Our friend who stayed with us a couple of days said that the street noise was loud and woke them up.

On this trip we went home NOB with three possible contenders for our house hunt and we let them mull over in our minds for a while. We think we have chosen THE one but will wait until we go back down for another view and then make our decision.

Stay tuned for our own little House Hunters International and see if you choose the one we end up picking.

I know, I know...it's been down before but hey...this is our little dream so go with it.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Second visit...November 2010

So after our very successful first trip to Merida we had decided that this was the place we were going to throw caution to the wind and invest in a place just for us. Actually, we started looking at places on our first visit after being there for only a day and being shown around by the lovely LeAnn from Mexico International and somehow knew that this was the place.

We soon discovered that Merida was full of beautiful old spanish colonial houses with spectacular facades.


Many were empty, crumbling and unloved.

 But many were also being restored to their former glory and were the envy of all that passed by them.









The colors were everything that you would expect from a picturesque spanish colonial city.









We again met up with LeAnn from Mexico International Real-estate and as this was our second trip we narrowed our search perimeters and looked more seriously at areas we had become a little more familiar with from our first visit. We are not made of money so we had set a very limited budget and were looking for that awesome crumbling ruin that we could someday turn into... well a much loved casa.

At the end of this second visit we ended up with a short list of four possibilities and were very excited and somewhat nervous at the same time about what we were actually doing.

I mean really! It is one thing to sit in the comfort of your own house and watch those crazy HGTV families burn their proverbial bras and go running naked through the fields of uncertainty but to actually do it ourselves?

First visit...April 2010

Ok! So, like crack to a junkie, we have been captivated by that addictive HGTV show House Hunters International and it is primarily responsible for us discovering the wonders of Merida and the Mexican Yucatan. After seeing two (now there are three) of its shows about people moving their lives to this wonderful place we decided to give it a visit and see what all the fuss was about. Yes, the show itself may be a bit of a 'set-up', but at least the the places and properties are real.

It was April 2010, Spring Break time, so off to the SOB we went. This was the little casa we rented on our first trip to Merida situated on Calle 51.
Yes it was AWESOME! and it has since been sold and added a second story too.

It was so beautiful and magical that we instantly fell in love with everything Merida!
The pool and the lighting at night was amazing.








The awesome formal and traditional sitting room at the front of the casa above and the wonderful decorative arch into the small (only by greedy western standards) but well equipped kitchen to the left.

It was the perfect size for a us..oh but wait...I was forgetting about those other four legged creatures (all three of them!). So if we were looking to move down here then we realized that our place needed a little more yard area.

Need I say that we returned NOB with grandiose ideas of living La vida loca and trolling the internet over the next many months with dreams of finding our own little slice of paradise.