Magical (Sur)realism

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.

The town fair, which I found after winding my way through a few blocks of huts with roofs made of dried leaves was one of the more surreal scenes of my trip so far. Across the street from the huts, the people of Santa Elena had built a stadium of what appeared to be large sticks and rope. When I arrived, the stadium was packed with people watching what turned out—upon closer inspection—to be bullfighting. Around the stadium were dozens of vendors selling hot dogs, Cokes, and various other snacks. One husband and wife teamhad pieces of fresh meat hanging from hooks and split vending duties: the woman would take the slabs down and grill them, while the man spent most of his time on the ground, cutting the copious intestines of whatever animal he had just killed. No more than 15 ft. from the intestines, was a stage covered in advertisements for Sol, the Mexican beer company. On the stage there was a live band and two women in bikinis.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the band’s leader called out.  “Let’s hear it for these two lovely ladies, straight from the capital, the White City, Mérida, Yucatán!” The women began to dance, turning to shake their tushes at the audience. The man with the intestines stopped cutting for a moment, looked up, and smiled.