After being sidelined for over a year by COVID-19, a beloved Mérida event called Biciruta was recently reactivated.

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Sunday the east lane of the city’s most famous boulevard, Paseo de Montejo, is open for bicycles only.

Thousands of riders and pedestrians enjoy the beautiful views along this shady avenue patterned after the world-renowned Champs-Élysées in Paris.

At the end of the 19th century the outbreak of the Spanish-American War created a shortage of hemp, the fiber used in nautical ropes, from the Philippines.

This caused the price of henequén, a similar fiber produced in the Yucatán, to skyrocket. And for massive wealth to be created almost overnight. At that time there were more millionaires in this small Mexican state than anywhere else on the planet!

Paris was THE most envied city at the time, so newly-monied Yucatecans developed their own version of Champs-Élysées lined with massive...