Last day in Progresso

Gray clouds are passing through the sky and a light breeze is sweeping along the pier where Gunilla is moored. It’s a warm day, but not as warm as the rest of the days this week. It’s the last day in Progresso. About five o’clock we leave the port and head for Galveston. The days in Progresso have been filled with different activities and I will bring many memories from this harbor.

To go from Gunilla to the town of Progresso is not always easy. First of all, the pier where Gunilla is located stretches about three kilometers from land. Second of all, walking on the pier is not allowed. So you have to take a taxi or thumb a lift to get to mainland. The days I’ve spent in Progresso has been filled with tanning on the long beach where all the tourists gather, eating tacos and shopping. However, Progresso is a quite small place and after a couple days spent in town I pretty much had seen it all. Luckily, there are a lot of buses that can take you to Merida, the capital of Yucatan.

Merida is a loud city filled with energy. The streets are stuffed with small stands and shops with pretty much everything you could imagine. There are people and traffic everywhere. Latin and pop music are playing from large speakers on the sidewalks, changing every minute as you pass another one. One day spent in Merida there happened to be a large market on the Plaza Grande. This is where most of my cash was spent. In the corner of the Plaza there is a nice ice cream café, where we stayed for a while after the shopping. The street in front of the café was closed for a stage performance. After a while a band started to play Mexican music on the stage and elderly couples gathered on the street for dancing. After a while when our ice creams were finished we joined them and we didn’t take the bus back to Progresso until it had went dark.

During the days in Mexico sleeping on deck has been a thing. Since our air-conditioning is pretty much none-existing at the moment it really has been a relief to not spend the night in the humid cabins. Something special about Progresso and Merida are the hammocks. On the street, in stores and on the beach people are selling hammocks in every possible color and size. Over the days, more and more people have gotten the chance to invest in a nice hammock and every evening more hammocks have been set on deck.

Despite the fact that the heat has caused a lack of energy among us all, we still have been quite busy the past days. I haven’t even mentioned that we visited a prehistoric Mayan city and swimmed in a so-called cenote. I have had a really good time in both Progresso and Merida, but now I feel quite content over that fact that we are leaving, going north and escaping the heat.

Olivia Fridfelt