Our sense of smell & taste are constantly on alert & this yummy authentic Yucatan dish – Papadzules – were perfect. A couple weeks ago when some of our Mexican friends invited us to their home, where their grandmother wanted to treat us to an authentic Yucatan dish! Agustin & Jessy (his future wife) smiled brightly as they extended an invitation for us to eat an authentic Yucatan meal with their family.
Papadzules – Authentic Yucatan Dish
Papadzules also called Mayan Egg Enchiladas are of Mayan origin and made with homemade Pumpkin Sauce. Our treat was that Agustin’s grandmother, Dulce, would be preparing the dish!
Jessy, Yazmin (Agustin’s mother) & I helped to prepare this delicious Yucatan meal by peeling hard boiled eggs! Personally I think Dulce assigned the task to us so we wouldn’t be snooping for her secret ingredient. Ha.
Jessy, Yazmin & me were assigned task to peel the boiled eggs for the Papadules!
Authentic Yucatan dish – Papadzules
I am providing you a recipe I found online since, Grandmother was not willing to provide the secret family ingredients for the sauce. I was there during the entire preparation of the pumpkin or tomate sauce, but Dulce did not share the secret family ingredients. My online research says that the dish consists of really just a few ingredients of tortillas, eggs, pumpkin, tomatoes, spices – it is a pretty doable dish. Having said that, I am sure it won’t match the delicious favor of Dulce’s Papadzules [which were fantastic]!
We will be heading back over to Dulce’s for another Mexican dish in a couple weeks for the National Dish of Mexico – Mole. I’ll let you know how that goes later!
Dulce & her marvelous family! Alexis, momma Yazmine, Agustin & his finacee, Jessy! Dulce in front with me.
We always have such a good time with this family & we are so honored to be considered familia to these beautiful friends!
Lets take a walk through the five Mérida neighborhoods we have lived in Mexico! Is there a correlation that all these neighborhoods are in North Mérida? Let’s look at our pros & cons of each – as a senior couple who walk everywhere – as well as cost of each.
Lets look at the pros & cons of the five Mérida neighborhoods that we have lived in at some point during our visits to Mérida. The neighborhoods are in chronological order based when we lived in that neighborhood. At the end we will share our absolute favorite! Are you with me?
Lets compare five North Mérida neighborhoods!
1] Xcumpich
To me, this neighborhood is residential & close to Gallerias Mall, Mayan Museum, Costco, Samsclub & restaurants.
Although the stores are within walking distance, I would highly recommend a car for this area. Ubers & InDriver are very handy but I think these services can get costly if used frequently.
Street noise was not noticeable in our residence. Quite peaceful.
Pricing for the short three week stay was about $900 USD. Since we planned on staying in Mexico for six (6) months this was a bit pricey for us & that is what lead us to look for another place to live, which is the next neighborhood that I will be discussing. We were staying in an extended stay hotel that included a full kitchen, paid laundry area, exercise gym and pool area. The location allowed us to get what we believed to be a taste of the culture in Mérida.
2] San Ramon Norte
We spent one month in the San Ramon neighborhood in a place called the Luxury apartments.
San Ramon Norte is a very busy local business district close to City Centre Shopping Center & really has everything a long stay tourist could want. San Ramon is filled with a variety of touristy style restaurants, bars grocery stores, bakeries, & etc.
This apartment location was located in a safe very walk-able area. Occasionally we used Uber for larger grocery shopping, trips to down town/Centro Mérida & etc.
Courtyard of Luxury Hotel Apartment.
The luxury apartment at that time was about 16,000 pesos monthly, which included all utilities, cable, internet (not-so-great), drinking water – this small apartment was cost effective and within our budget. We met some friends that told us that San Ramon was a little less of a tourist area than Xcumpich. They also liked hanging out with us & wanted us as a closer neighbor. This is how we moved into the next neighborhood that I will be discussing.
3] Montecristo
Our friend sent us a picture of a house in the Montecristo neighborhood with the homeowners telephone number & told us to contact the owner about a short term lease. We scheduled an appointment to visit the home in Montecristo & happily to our surprise this home was in the middle of a nice residential neighborhood that offered the full Mérida cultural experience. The homeowners lived downstairs & only spoke the Spanish language. The home consisted of 3 full bathrooms, 2 extra large bedrooms with both a front & back oversized outdoor balconies. The home was located directly across the street from an International school that had soccer fields, & tennis courts.
This was a local working class neighborhood within walking distance of Altabrisa Mall, which contained a wide variety of businesses, restaurants & cocinas (small kitchens with home delivery)! This neighborhood was extremely walk-able & Uber/taxis were never a problem. Buses were also very available.
Traffic was heavy at times but many an evening we would sit out on the front terrace watching traffic, soccer teams playing, etc. What I’m saying traffic noise was not a problem inside apartment.
Calle 5 – we loved living in the Montecristo neighborhood – one of our top choices for favorite Merida neighborhoods
The best part of the deal was the owner was renting this large fully furnished apartment for $10,000 pesos a month, plus we paid the electric bill. We soon became friends with the homeowners & were invited to join them for coffee and bread, a cultural tradition in Mérida, that soon became part of our routine.
4] Miguel Aleman
We stayed in this beautiful apartment for just one week upon our return to Mérida this year.
This was a local working neighborhood with a large park & locally owned restaurants.
This neighborhood is away from any real shopping areas so we had no choice, but to use Uber but it was very iffy if they would show up late or at all….Very disappointing.
No traffic noise other than neighbors coming & going.
We were there one week with a beautiful apartment & courtyard. We found this on AirBnB so was a little expensive in my eyes for $250 for one week.
5] Campestre
We have spent two of the four months of our stay here in Mérida in this beautiful neighborhood called “Campestre”.
This apartment is located over a great coffee shop & bakery in the Campestre neighborhood. Campestre is a working class neighborhood with assorted businesses, schools & restaurants to choose from.
Lovely streets with homes displaying beautiful flower decorations hanging over their fences along sidewalks that are extremely walk-able! Beautiful large casas to view in your walks & close to one of the most popular tourist streets in Mérida named Paseo Montejo!
Flowers in lovely Campestre neighborhood
This is a busy street but the noise is minimal inside our apartment upstairs.
We are paying $7,000 pesos a month & electric. Our bill for two months was not much more than the price of a meal! Very happy.
Our Favorite Mérida Neighborhoods – Drum Roll Please….
If I had to rank these five neighborhoods in North of Centro Méridait would be an easy choice – a tie between Montecristo & Campestre followed by San Ramon, Xcumpich & Miguel Aleman at the bottom. Each, Montecristo & Campestre, would be an extremely good choice for living for a short or longer period.
Although the Artesanal Bakery Coffee Shop is not really hidden, we felt as if we’d found valuable treasure for sure in finding this coffee shop in Merida!
We loved being back in Merida for the next six months but we were staying in a different neighborhood, Campestre. First thing after our arrival to Merida, of course, was to catch up with our friends, Elsa & Pedro, to see what had been going on for with them since our last visit. We had our selection of coffee61 shops we loved in the Montecristo neighborhood but Pedro asked if we wanted to try coffee at a different spot?
One of the best parts about traveling is meeting back up with friends we’ve made thru travels!
Artesanal Bakery Coffee Shop
We have tried many coffee shops in Merida but one stands out above the rest & that is the subject of today’s post – Artesanal Bakery Coffee Shop in the Campestre neighborhood of Merida!
We are not coffee experts but we like what we like;) I love ordering a Cappuccino & look forward to see what kind of design will be on top! It definitely is an art to make those hearts, flowers, leaves, etc & I love it! Plus, the cups are huge & the coffee is awesome!
My drink of choice is a Cappuccino but The Big Guy goes back & forth between an Espresso or Americano!
The Menu of this bakery/coffee shop
Besides the fact that the hot coffee drinks are awesome, the menu of this coffee shop is pretty darn good as well! Hot or cold drinks & food are right up there in deliciousness! Here is the menu & some pics of the food we love here!
Artesanal Bakery is a great place for coffee & bakery or light meal. The vibe is very tranquillo!
The Bakery
The Focaccia bread with chicken is just one of the sandwiches offered & it is amazing! I had never had this type of bread before & now I’m kicking myself. I had to learn a little more about this fantastic bread. Focaccia is baked at 475 degrees Fahrenheit vs the 248 degrees Fahrenheit for traditional bread. Since it has such a high quantity of olive oil & herbs, it does not go stale as quickly as other breads. Educational tip for the day! LOL.
Chicken on fresh baked focacchia bread is wonderful & so tasty!
The Big Guy’s favorite at top, sliced baguette & oil. Chocolate croissant at bottom!
Yummy bakery goods at Artesanal Bakery in Merida!
In Closing…
This bakery coffee shop is a must visit!
Entrance of Artesanal Bakery Coffee Shop in Merida, Mexico!
One visit will not be enough! The staff & the baked goods are amazing! The coffees, both cold & hot, are top notch. The atmosphere is chilled & tranquillo with a beautiful setting inside & out! Its easy to see why this place is so popular!
The Artesanal Bakery Coffee Cafe Staff! What a great team! My apologies to Vanessa & Jorge who I missed on photos. And I could not leave out Adriana, the house cleaner & Anohart, manager!!
Creating A Monthly Budget to Get The Most International Travel!
Creating a monthly budget to get the most out of international travel has been no doubt the biggest contribution to getting our dream of international travel to fruition; but it took us a bit to get here!
Some people say Material ‘things’ may make you happy but as a retired senior couple creating a monthly budget was essential for us in planning for our international travel adventures! Would we be one of those traveling couples who could leave their material possessions behind to travel? The simple answer is YES!
We had an epiphany of sorts that made us realize that material things meant nothing in the grand scheme of life. Sure we need food, shelter, water, transportation, etc but can we live without all the other extra stuff? We quickly realized that we are quite happy with being the owners of our own destiny +& what we could fit into our backpack & suitcase.
We made plenty of notes & had a pretty clear picture about what the things senior travelers needed to do to travel internationally, but we hadn’t really created a monthly budget on the costs involved. I admit that saying create a monthly budget was easier said than done. But when The Big Guy sets his mind to something….well lets just say the numbers were a real eye opener for our international travel adventures.
Our Life as Seniors BEFORE Creating A Budget!
We worked hard & struggled to pay off our house early thinking we would have a cash windfall, since we had no monthly mortgage. The real shocker for me was that no mortgage payment sounds good, but the reality was we still had to pay real estate taxes, property insurance & utilities to keep the house up & running! Yikes, the property taxes alone was enough to make us second guess if we would even be able to keep the house on our estimated monthly retirement income. Honestly, I just feel horrible for seniors who have paid their homes off because we know they continue to struggle to make ends meet into their elder years trying to keep their heads above water just to keep the home they paid off years ago!! They have their reasons for staying in their home & I get that but getting a full-time job after retiring to make ends meet just didn’t make sense to us.
What we did as Seniors to prepare for in creating a monthly budget!
Simply put, we knew that it was more than just creating a monthly budget – we would have to live with that budget so first phase was just to continue to curb any unnecessary spending. We used every dollar we could find to pay off credit card debt. It was a struggle but we did it. Now that we look back on the number of years we paid high interest on those card cards, we know that credit card debt had no place in our future travel budget so paying off debt was already on our plates. What I’m saying is paying off debt is no easy task & it took a bit of time but we got it done. Believe me when I tell you how stress free it feels knowing that you have no monthly credit card payments due!
Before we put our home on the market, I put feelers out that we were selling our house along with every piece of furniture, decor, etc in house. We Sold EVERYTHING in our house by word of mouth & garage sales – if it didn’t sell we donated it. Luckily the real estate market was in a good spot which made for a quick sale enabling us to pay off all remaining debt.
House sold! Budget done! Next step, pack those suit cases! Creating a monthly budget allowed our dream of international traveling to become a reality.
We sold our vehicles within the last couple days before we caught our first international flight. The money we saved from not having monthly car maintenance & auto insurance payments went toward our international transportation costs.
Creating our monthly budget for international travel!
We actually didn’t start a monthly budget until we hit Mexico last year. We wanted to track our expenses to see what the real cost would be. Problem was the ‘loose’ tracking we did. Oh, we knew most of what we spent but we didn’t have the full picture.
Jump ahead a month & The Big Guy got our budget on paper! To get to this point we read the fine print on every recurring insurance policy or subscription service we had. If it no longer benefited us or was not valid outside the United States, we canceled it. We canceled subscriptions that we had forgotten we even had [small $ amounts can easily be missed]! Blah, blah, blah, we fine tuned our expenses down to a list of Needs/Wants/Savings using a loose version of the 50/30/20 Budget Rule.
The 50/30/20 BUDGET RULE guides you thru determining your Needs [50% of your budget], Wants [30% of your budget] & Savings or Repayment of Debt [20% of your budget]. The 50/30/20 Rule is AMAZING! The beauty of this Rule is it is not in stone. Check out our video at end of this post for a visual.
Our budget ended up 55/33/12 as it is streamlined to our expenses. We as seniors naturally have different Needs or more Needs vs say a 40 or even 50 year old but the budget fits us perfectly.
Here is a look at our Needs:Housing – Utilities – Groceries – Medical/health insurance & Transportation.
Here is a look at our WANTS: Clothing, entertainment {excursions}, subscriptions, personal care {mani/pedis, salon}, etc. Anything that you might want on a monthly basis. You do You!
Lastly, the Savings/Repayment of Debt: Monthly transfer to savings or investment.
It may take a minute to get your Budget to make sense but…
Again, the beauty of a budget is that you can review periodically & see if you should revise amounts or delete a category. For example, we do have an entry for Laundry under ‘Wants’. We haven’t had to pay for laundry for months but the money is still allocated there as we know we may need laundry services at our next stop.
All I can say is honestly the 50/30/20 Budget Rule was a WINNER with us! We have a limited monthly income that allows us live quite comfortably using our monthly budget as a guide in spending. Take care, happy traveling & be safe.
Here is a short video we did on Budgeting that will give you a visual.
