I took the colectivo from Mérida’s Parque San Juan on a Thursday morning, forty-five minutes of flat highway through henequen scrubland, and arrived at a place that seemed completely unbothered by the idea of impressing anyone. Progreso’s malecón smelled like brine and frying fish. A man was sleeping in a hammock strung between two palms at ten in the morning. I understood immediately that I had come to the right place.
The Pier and the Gulf
The muelle — at six kilometers, supposedly the longest in the Americas — exists for commercial shipping, not romance, which is exactly why it works. You walk out onto it and the town recedes into a thin line behind you, the Gulf opening up on both sides in that particular shade of green-gray that belongs only to this coast. The water is almost embarrassingly shallow this close to shore; you can wade out fifty meters and still feel the sand under your feet. Families set up here on weekends with coolers and folding chairs, the kids chest-deep fifty meters from the beach. There are no waves to speak of. The Gulf here is more like a large warm bath than an ocean, and nobody seems to mind. I spent an afternoon just sitting at the end of the pier watching pelicans work the water below the pilings, which I am not ashamed to admit was one of the more pleasurable hours I spent in Yucatán.
Ceviche at the Malecón
The waterfront restaurants along Calle 19 are not fancy. Plastic chairs, hand-painted menus, ceiling fans turning slowly overhead. I ordered a ceviche de camarón at a place called El Cordobés — the portion arrived in a vessel closer in size to a salad bowl than anything I had been prepared for, packed with shrimp, tomato, cilantro, habanero, and enough lime to make your eyes water. I ate it with tostadas and a cold Montejo and watched the afternoon light go flat and golden over the pier. Later I tried the tikin xic, a whole fish marinated in achiote and grilled over charcoal, which I had been told was the thing to eat in Progreso and which turned out to be exactly as good as advertised. The trick is to go where the Meridano families go, not where the cruise ship passengers are being herded — which in Progreso is easy enough, since those two groups barely overlap.
The Town Behind the Malecón
Step one block back from the water and Progreso becomes a working port town — hardware stores, a municipal market on Calle 25 where women sell chaya and habaneros by the kilo, a pharmacy, a church with a painted facade that has been slowly peeling for what looks like decades. There is a faded elegance to the grid of colonial houses, the kind of place that was prosperous once on henequen money and has since settled into a comfortable, unassuming middle age. I liked it more for not trying.
Getting There
Colectivos to Progreso leave every few minutes from Calle 62 between 65 and 67 in central Mérida, near Parque San Juan. The ride costs around 40 pesos and takes forty to fifty minutes depending on traffic. There is no reason to rent a car. The town is entirely walkable once you arrive.