Edd:  As a University of Georgia graduate, I am SO excited that college football season is about to start. Go Dawgs!

Cynthia:  (Sigh) No need to make plans for Saturday afternoons the next few months. It wasn’t always easy for you to watch live sporting events.

E:  Unless it was soccer. When we first moved to Cuenca, we paid $30 a month for dial-up internet service that we shared with five other people. At night when everyone was online looking at Facebook or whatever you couldn’t even stay connected.

C:  Now we pay $25 for dedicated fiber optic service with 400 Mbps. What an improvement! And we could get 500 Mbps if we wanted to pay a little more, but what we have works fine. You mentioned soccer because when we had DirecTV that was the only sport we could watch.

E:  What a waste of money that was. A bunch of Spanish channels and 10-year-old U.S. reruns, but it was the only local source of live television. I started exploring other options...

Cynthia:  Our original plan was to spend two weeks in San Miguel. Shortly after arriving, we decided to extend our visit an additional week. That pretty much sums up our feelings about this top expat destination, right?

Edd:  Yep. And I’m glad we moved to a different part of the city for that extra time. It gave us a more complete impression.

C:  Turns out we chose an extremely popular location for the expat community. It was really convenient. Only about a 15-minute walk to downtown, and there were lots of great restaurants in the neighborhood.

E:  Plus a 2-story building full of organic foods and products was so close. I went to a massive supermarket that, like the modern northern area of Mérida, almost made me forget I was in Mexico! 

C:  Can you even think of anything we didn’t like?

E:  Well, let’s be honest, the hills in some areas of town are incredibly steep. And even with good walking shoes on, the cobblestone...

Cynthia:  Our initial impressions of Mérida were quite positive—tons to do, friendly people, low cost of living. After two weeks exploring the city, has any of that changed for you?

Edd:  Not really. We’ve been so busy every day and there’s still a lot we didn’t get to do. Sadly all the museums remain closed because of COVID. We were really looking forward to visiting several of them.

C:  Let’s get the “elephant in the room” out of the way. The weather…

E:  Oof. No amount of forewarning prepared us for the heat in Mérida. We couldn’t bear stepping outside in the afternoons.

C:  Well, we were there during the hottest time of the year. Plus our bodies are attuned to a temperate climate after 11 years in Cuenca.

E:  Yeah, but as an expat candidly admitted, “Mérida has three seasons—hot, hotter, and hottest!”

C:  So true. It’s easy to understand why the...