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[Brendita]

Has anyone been there & can you tell me what it's like there? Hot, humid, great beaches? How big of a place is it? Any info would be greatly appreciated. We are going there to practise teach & just wondered what it's like. Thanks for your time. I see my other post, lots of people have read it ,but no one has replied so I thought I'd write it a little different & see if I can get a response. Cheers everyone!

[MELEE]

I was there in 1990

I believe Ben Round de Bloc has probably been there more recently. I'm sure he'll answer you soon, he just got caught up in some other hot topics at the moment.

MMMM lets see what I can remember,

It was March and it wasn't very hot, it was really windy however. I found the sea quite dirty, but I'd just come from the Carribean side so maybe my view was skewed by that. I was told by my Mexican host family that Progresso is where the shells in all the shops in Merida come from and that its a great place to find shells, but that day we only found tiny ones--maybe it sas the wrong time of year.

The town was(at that time) pretty small, and we went to visit some fancy hotels near by because my host family was scouting "Semana Santa" vacation locales.

That's about all, also, there were TONS of topes(speed bumps) on the road from Merida! But that was during my tope iniciation period, so maybe now I wouldn't think that there was an excessive amount.

[~Matthew~]

I was in Progreso visiting in March and I found the ocean to be brilliant. I even have a picture up of it in my home. The town itself is small but the people are wonderful.

[Ben Round de Bloc]

During most of the year Progreso is a pretty laid-back fishing and port town. It has a nice public beach, but not the crystal-clear water of the Caribbean. Some excellent seafood restaurants and quite a few small shops. There are some tourists but not over-run with them except when a cruise ship docks there. There's also a small expat community.

During Semana Santa and more so during the months of July and August, Progreso is transformed into anything but quiet and peaceful. People from Merida who own beach houses there move to Progreso for the summer, and many of those who don't own beach houses either rent anything available from houses to closet-sized rooms in order to spend part of the summer there or they head for Progreso whenever they can mainly on weekends. Weekends during the summer months in Progreso = wall-to-wall people, loud music everywhere, bumper-to-bumper traffic, all night discos, bands on the beach with amplifiers the size of boxcars on Sundays, lots and lots of beer, lines well over a block long at both the Merida-to-Progreso bus station and the Progreso-to-Merida bus station most of the day and lines almost as long to get into any of the decent and even not-so-decent restaurants. (Needless to say, I avoid Progreso on weekends during the summer.)

For people who aren't used to this climate, I imagine Progreso would seem hot and humid much of the year. During the winter months most days feel damp, chilly, and windy with the water temperature too cold for comfortable swimming. During the summer when there's a breeze coming in off the water, it's not bad. However, when the breeze is coming off the land side, it's sweltering.

[Brendita]

Thank-you all so much for the info. We will go check it out. We will be practise teaching there & then who knows where we will end up after that. We are totally open & looking for an adventure. Cheers everyone & best of luck on all your adventures.

[lozwich]

[Brendita]

I agree that it is not a good idea to collect shells. I saw a tee shirt in Costa Rica once that had 3 pictures on the front & underneath each picture there was a caption. One said "take nothing but pictures' the next was "leave nothing but footprints" and the third said "kill nothing but time" I thought that said it all.

[Ben Round de Bloc]