Tekax

I stopped in Tekax because I had a slow puncture and the vulcanizadora was closed for lunch. By the time the tire was fixed I had eaten a bowl of sopa de lima at a table on the plaza, walked the length of the market twice, and decided there was no particular rush to leave. That was two years ago. I have been back three times since — which is about three more times than most people making the run between Mérida and Maní ever manage.

The Convent of San Juan Bautista

The convent is enormous in the way that Franciscan ambition in the sixteenth century was enormous — built to dominate not just the skyline but the imagination. The atrium alone could hold several hundred people, and on a Tuesday afternoon in June it held me, two dogs, and a man selling elotes from a cart near the gate. The church interior is stripped down, almost severe, which I find more affecting than the gilded altarpieces you see in the bigger Yucatán towns. The proportions are what stay with you. Standing at the back of the nave looking toward the altar, the barrel vault seems to compress distance and time in equal measure. The convent cells along the north cloister are partly accessible, and the views from the upper corridor across the rooftops to the sierra are worth the climb.

The Market and the Food

The Mercado Municipal in Tekax is the kind of place where everything on sale was grown or made within a two-hour radius, not because it is curated that way but because that is simply what people here eat. I have bought chaya leaves still damp from the field, recados ground to order, and a wedge of queso de bola so fresh it was still warm. The fondas along the back wall open early and serve poc chuc, papadzules, and a relleno negro that is genuinely dark and complex in a way that the version in tourist restaurants in Mérida is not. Bring cash. Bring a bag. Go before noon.

Gruta de Xtacumbilxunaan

The cave is about six kilometers outside town, a short and dusty drive down a road that the GPS treats with suspicion. The stalactites are fine — all caves have stalactites. What you come for is the exit flight. Around six in the evening, the bat colony begins to move, and for the next twenty minutes the sky above the cave mouth fills with a continuous dark spiral of perhaps a hundred thousand individuals, banking south in tight formation before dispersing across the milpa. It is entirely silent from a distance and entirely worth the wait. Bring something to sit on.

Getting There

Tekax is roughly 130 kilometers south of Mérida along Highway 184, about two hours by car. ADO runs daily buses from the Mérida CAME terminal, journey time around two and a half hours. There is no colectivo network worth relying on once you are in town, so a rental car or taxi arrangement makes the cave visit easier. Accommodation is limited — a couple of small hotels on the plaza, nothing fancy.