Every year on May 5, bars and restaurants across the United States make themselves over to look like Timothy Leary's version of Tiajuana (scary, right?). People guzzle margaritas, swat at pinatas, and attempt to do Mexican hat dances with varying degrees of success. And most of them think they're celebrating Mexico's Independence Day.

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The first sign of Carnaval in Cozumel is the enormous, busty female statue that takes the stage in the town’s main plaza. As sun sets, people gather in the nearby streets wearing long polyester robes glittering with sequins. The sheen of thier heavily styled hair and makeup is just visible in the twilight. Then, the music starts. Drums, the tinny Latin trumpet, a dose of reggaeton.  

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Mérida supports a flourishing art scene. Yucatán Living, an online magazine run by American ex-pats, produces a useful guide to galleries and artist studios.  We’ve listed three of our favorites below:

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Only eight species of sea turtles exist in the world; four of them nest in the state of Quintana Roo. At Akumal, snorklers are likely to see two types of turtles. The loggerhead turtle or tortuga caguama  has unique orange patterns on its shell. The green turtle, the tortuga verde, has a rounder and predictably greener shell. 

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When you think of traditional Mexican beverages, you probably have visions of downing tequila in crowded bars until the wee hours of the mañana. However, Mexican refreshments don’t have to include headaches, hangovers, and hazy memories of last night. Locals teetotal in style with atole, a hot, cornstarch-based drink served throughout Mexico and Central America as a street food. Atole is a combination of cooked cornmeal (masa), water, and cane sugar blocks (piloncillo), creating a drink with a consistency ranging from thin and watery to porridge-like. Traditional flavorings include cinnamon, vanilla, fruit, and that ubiquitous Mexican indulgence, chocolate. Other cereal grains may be substituted for cornmeal.

Atole is imbibed most frequently during the Mexican holiday season. Chocolate atole, called champurrado, is commonly enjoyed on Christmas and the Day of the Dead (November 2nd). Whatever the time of year, grab a cup of atole, unwrap a tamale, and enjoy a beautiful hangover-free day in the Yucatán.

Around 50% of Mexican land is locked up in ejido ownership. The system, under which communities, rather than individuals, own plots of land, draws on the pre-conquest practice of tribal farming and dates back to the final days of the Mexican Revolution and the Law of Agrarian Reform. The goal of this reform was to enable the government to transfer land from wealthy families and businesses to the peasants that actually farmed it; critics say it impeded agricultural productivity.

In 1992, when then-president Carlos Salinas initiated economic liberalization, land politics again took center stage in the debate. Salinas developed a process by which ejido land could be converted into individual parcels—and, therefore, private property.

For the most part, this law has affected change slowly. Nationwide, by 2007, fewer than 10% of the ejidos had undergone the shift to private ownership. In tourist areas, on the other hand, the opportunity to sell land to foreigners—who can often afford to pay more than locals—provides an incentive for cooperatives to take advantage of the conversion.

Proponents of the reform point to Quintana Roo’s tourist boom as an example of spurred growth; its critics say that it has allowed foreigners to buy up the region’s most valuable land—just as they did before the revolution.

Santa Elena is a village of about 3000 people, largely indigenous, about 2½hr. south of Mérida. If it weren’t on the heavily-trafficked road from Mérida to the ruins on the Ruta Puuc, there’s pretty much no chance it would make it into even the most comprehensive guidebook. But it is on that road, so on an early Saturday evening, I stepped off a bus from the ruins in Santa Elena and started to look around for a ride home. Usually that ride would come in the form of a combi, or any one of dozens of vans that shuttle about a dozen people at a time between the small towns in the area. But there were none waiting in the usual place, so I asked a man sitting in a nearby park where I might find one. He said they would probably be at the town fair a few blocks away.

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