Noche de Leyendas

Noche de leyendas is a night tour of the historic center of Merida.  It's both a history lesson and play with audience participation.  The tour begins in front of Teatro Peon Contreras, named for one of the early Spaniards, where the audience is introduced to Don Clemente Cardenas. Throughout the tour, the narrator and actors are dressen in period costume from the XVI, XVII, and XVIII centuries.

The story begins with a description of the theater and also UADY (University of Yucatan).  Audience members are pulled to the front to participate as historical characters while the narrators feed them the lines and often crack jokes about them.  There are 7 stops along the way.  

#2 is the church of Tercera Orden, built in XVII by the Jesuits. Although on this tour we don't enter, it's worth it to go inside when the doors are open.  It's rather unassuming from the outside, but inside are the most beautiful frescos.

Stop #3 is the Cathedral of Merida.  Here they told about how the ancient Maya city T' Ho was demolished by the Spaniards who then used the stones from the temple to build the cathedral.  

The next stop, #4, is the plaza of Xcanzi'ho where we meet the Mayan king A'a Chakan  and a musician and then on to La Casa de los Montejos, founders of the city.

The next stop, #6, was interesting.  We went down into a parking garage under the Casa de Los Ladrillos.  Here we are taken into the tunnels that run underneath the city.  I wish I could have taken photos, but it was candle lit and too dark.  In fact, since it was a night tour, the photos I did take weren't that great.

The final scene was at the Convent of the Conceptionist nuns ( Las Monjas).  The two nuns who greet us tell a legend and were hilarious.  

The tour is completely in Spanish, so I didn't understand everything they said, but since I have studied the city's history and am currently reading an historical novel of the founding, I got the main idea.  Although, the queen made fun of me when I didn't understand her question. It was a fun  experience for the whole family and lasted almost two hours.  A play for about $8...not bad.