This year’s big History of Science Society meeting is in Mérida, Mexico. I’m very excited to go, both to share my recent work, reconnect with friends and colleagues, and to go see some ancient Mayan monuments! (If you want to see me present, I’m in the “Biomedicine” session on Friday the 8th, 15:30, Fiesta Americana Yucatan Lobby IV.) The excitement is despite the fact that total travel time from Berlin will be 19 hours. This will be my first time visiting Mexico, despite the fact that I grew up in California, and my first time in the tropics.
However! One weird thing the local organizing team has repeatedly told us is that public transportation is slow, and that it’s easier to walk, or take a taxi or Uber. If you’re coming to the conference you should follow the local organizers’ advice. However, I like public transit, I did a bunch of research on the local transit situation, and I have hubris. Here’s what I am going to try to do when I arrive at MID airport on 4 Nov, and a couple other bits of travel advice. This is all based on internet research, you should do what the local organizers say.
Mérida airport MID to the conference hotel
The two rideshare services are Uber and Didi. However, there is direct public transit from MID to the conference hotel, the Fiesta Americana, via the airport express bus 701. The stop is literally called Fiesta Americana, which is very helpful. The public transit system is called Va-y-Ven; fares are paid via prepaid tarjetas intellegentes. At the airport a card can be bought (I hope) at the ADO ticket counter for Mex$25 (everything that follows is in pesos). The 701 bus, unlike rideshares, can be caught at the airport. The 701 costs $45 each way, all other rides are $12. Since the card is prepaid, I think I’m going to put $210, for 10 rides plus the airport bus (that’s €10 total). The card can be reloaded at machines on the street, or at Oxxo, Dunosusa, Willys, Farmacias YZA, or Super Aki.
Alternatively, you can walk 5–10 min out from the airport to Av. Internacional & C. 14, and take the express Ie-Tram 906 (which is actually an e-BRT system) to the central Ie-Tram depot at Parque La Plancha (apparently a destination in its own right), and walk 20 min to the hotel from there.
A brief rant about the Va-y-Ven app
On the iPhone, at least, Va-y-Ven has one of the most atrocious smartphone apps I have ever used (and I have used many), plus its website cannot be accessed in Europe; I had to VPN into New York to get it to load. I shouldn’t have bothered, because the site is useless. The app is better, despite themselves. Every time you open the Va-y-Ven app it shows you an ad for the Va-y-Ven app. Why. Once you’ve dismissed the ad, the first thing you might want to do is to look at a network map of all the bus routes, but no, neither the app nor the Va-y-Ven website has a network route map. Yes. The only reasonable thing left to do is to enter a 3-digit number in the “Buscar” field. (Remember, in your Brother Maynard* voice: “Three are the numbers that shall be entered, no more, no less…”) It doesn’t matter what number because it doesn’t work. It will just say “No se encontraron rutas” no matter what you enter. However, this is the only way to access the option “Selecionar punto en mapa,” which is practically the only way to use the app. For some reason it is not possible to select this via the menu. Once you tap “Selecionar punto en mapa,” you will be shown a a navigation pin point in a blank background. Don’t be confused, it’s not broken! What you are seeing is a very, very zoomed in view of a patch of uninhabited rainforest 8 km west of Solferino, in Quintana Roo, population ~800, and 300 km east of Mérida. Pinch to zoom out, scroll all the way west to Mérida, and then, once you find Mérida, zoom in as far as you can go, and move the map around so that the nav point is where you want it. You will have to do this *every* *single* *time*. Put the navigation pin wherever you want (but don’t tap the X right next to it, because that will cancel what you’re doing and punt you back to the startup screen), then tap “Rutas cercanas a esta ubicación.” You will now get a list of all routes that run roughly nearby your nav pin (within a 30 min walk, I think?)—in numerical order (sort of!), rather than in something sensible like how far away the route actually stops. Many of the routes at the top of the list are night routes, obviously. You can toggle each route to show it on the map, and pray that the first few you toggle actually go near your navpoint. You can also tap on a route to see a list of all of its stops in order (never a useful first option??!), but no map; in this view you can tap on each stop to see where it is on the map, hoping every time you’ve tapped on the right one. I’m sure there is some redeeming routing information to be found in the Va-y-Ven app, it’s the best available.
Mérida Museums
The Gran Museo del Mundo Maya is also on C. 60 north of the hotel, take buses 72, 73, or 74 from Consulado EU to either Siglo XXI, or Paradero Suites Mérida, or Tesla Center. (If there is a bus marked Tapetes that is also fine??). The Museo de Arte Popular de Yucatan is there also.
Chichén Itzá
The two cool bonuses of going to Chichén Itzá this year are the new (?) museum and the opening of Chichén Viejo to the public. Chichén Viejo is a 1 km walk south of the main Chichén Itzá site and features an entrance arch, a residential group, and “the so-called Palace of the Phalluses.” Otherwise Chichén Itzá itself is devoid of ancient Maya houses.
All of the guides I’ve read say things about swimming and mosquitoes. Climbing on the pyramid is no longer allowed.
The ADO bus (https://www.ado.com.mx) departs from Mérida Centro Histórico (C. 69 & C. 70), which is a 10–15 min taxi ride from the hotel; there is a closer ADO terminal to the hotel, but I don’t think the Chichén Itzá bus departs from there. The ride is 2 hrs and goes directly to the Chichén Itzá site visitors center. Buses depart from Mérida at 6:30 and 9 am. There is only one return bus to Mérida at 5pm. Tix are around $300–400, round trip, and can be bought online or at the many ticket offices sprinkled around the city.
Tren Maya
Unfortunately, taking the Tren Maya is more complicated than the bus. The Mérida station is in a town called Teya, and it’s a ca. 30–40 min drive from the hotel. (There is also another station nearby, Umán, to the southwest of MID airport.) Current departure times from Mérida-Teya are 7 and 9 am and 14:40, and the train ride is 1hr20. Return departures are at 17:56 and 19:51. From the Chichén Itzá station there is an additional bus shuttle (15 min) that is $50 round trip. Tickets can be purchased a maximum of 7 days in advance, and there’s no other way to check the timetable. The website to buy train tickets is blocked in the US, you have to VPN to Europe, Canada, or Mexico. I would have loved to have taken the train for this trip, but I’ll have to save it for next time due to time constraints.
Given the fact that the Deutsche Bahn had some minor involvement in building out the Tren Maya (the very nice ICE 4 seat I’m sitting in as I type this looks identical to photos of the ones seats in the Tren Maya sets), I’m shocked the ticketing system is so user-hostile. Not only are there separate websites for information, booking, and payment, but last spring the Washington Post suggested that you need to double check that the payment and booking sites are communicating with each other properly. Also: I’m sure the timetable is not planned on a week-by-week basis, and, even if it is, whoever is running the Tren Maya should publish the timetable in advance (rather than forcing people to pretend to book a seat) to help prospective passengers plan their trips. Deutsche Bahn is far from perfect, but their consumer-facing app and websites are possibly the best around.)
Bugs
People who know me well know that I am a mosquito magnet, mosquitoes bites give me 1–3 cm diameter itchy welts, and I just really hate and fear mosquitoes, they make me miserable. The HSS organizers suggest “DEET or natural alternatives like citronella.” My two cents: citronella candles are useless, while topical application of citronella can be a little bit helpful. Really, though, if your goal is to repel mosquitoes, DEET (in moderate concentrations, the super concentrated stuff is more portable but harder to apply) will be much better. Even better still is icaridin, which in Europe is often sold under the brand name Autan. I personally find icaridin more effective than DEET and its smell less offensive. I’ve seen it on occasion sold in the US. Apparently its main advantage besides smelling less bad is that it’s not a mild solvent, like so many DEET preparations are.
Header image is from Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston, The Maya, 10th ed., p. 237: “[A] rendering of a wall painting from the Temple of the Warriors, Chichen Itza. Canoe-borne warriors reconnoiter the Maya coast.”
Daniel Liu, History of Science 