Beyond the City Walls: Mérida's Cenote Foragers and the Fleeting Huaya Season

The first huaya drops in late May, and by August it's gone — a tiny, translucent fruit encased in a brittle green shell that stains your fingers and tastes like lychee crossed with sour grape. In Mérida's central market, vendors stack pyramids of them on banana leaves while regulars crack them open with practiced thumbs, sucking the flesh clean before the heat of the day sets in. It is a ritual as old as the city itself, and almost entirely unknown to visitors.

This guide traces the chain from cenote-edge trees to market stall to contemporary kitchen, following the foragers, cooks, and obsessive fruit hunters who animate Mérida's most ephemeral season. You'll learn where to taste huaya in its raw form, which chefs are fermenting and pickling it into something entirely new, and how to venture beyond Santiago and Santa Ana to the limestone sinkholes where wild fruit trees still grow unchecked. If you visit between June and July, this is the Yucatán story no one else is telling.

1. Mercado Lucas de Gálvez: Ground Zero for Huaya Season

Start at Mercado Lucas de Gálvez on Calle 56A in the southeast corner of the centro histórico. By six in the morning, Maya-speaking vendors from Oxkutzcab and Ticul arrive with pickup trucks loaded with huaya roja and huaya verde, the red and green varieties that taste markedly different. The red is sweeter, slightly floral; the green carries a tart, almost resinous edge.

Head to the fruit aisle on the market's eastern corridor, past the recado spice vendors. Look for Doña Elvia, a third-generation seller who weighs huaya by the kilo on a hand-balanced scale. She will show you how to crack the shell cleanly — a quick twist, not a crush — and warn you not to bite the seed, which is mildly toxic when raw.

The market is chaotic by nine, so arrive early and pair your huaya tasting with a cup of champola, a blended soursop drink sold three stalls down. Avoid the pre-bagged fruit near the main entrance; it's often picked too early and lacks the custard-like sweetness of tree-ripened specimens.

Bring a small towel. Huaya juice is sticky and the pink-red variety leaves stains that rival beet juice. Locals eat standing up, shells tossed into a communal bucket, and you should do the same. There is no elegant way to eat this fruit, and that is entirely the point.

2. Cenote Foraging with Don Ermilo in Cuzamá

Forty minutes south of Mérida, the ejido lands around Cuzamá are riddled with cenotes, and the huaya trees growing along their limestone rims produce fruit with an intensity that cultivated varieties cannot match. Don Ermilo Canul, a retired henequen worker turned forager, leads informal walks through the scrubland to three cenotes — Chelentún, Chansinic'che, and Bolonchoojol — where he harvests wild huaya, ramón nuts, and chaya leaves.

This isn't a polished tour. You meet Don Ermilo at the truck-rail platform near the Cuzamá cenote park entrance, and he walks you along a dusty path through low jungle. He carries a machete, a woven morral bag, and an encyclopedic knowledge of every edible plant within a two-kilometre radius. His Spanish is accented heavily with Yucatec Maya, so a basic grasp of Spanish helps enormously.

The foraging itself takes roughly two hours. Don Ermilo shimmies up huaya trees with a rope loop around his ankles — a technique he learned at age eight — and drops clusters down to you. The fruit eaten warm from the branch, minutes after picking, is a revelation: more aromatic, less acidic, with a floral perfume that fades within hours of harvest.

Arrange visits through the Cuzamá ejido office or ask at the cenote park ticket booth. There's no website. Leave a tip of at least 300 pesos per person, and bring water — there's no shade on the walk in and temperatures regularly exceed 35°C by midmorning.

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3. Chef Roberto Solís and the Huaya Tasting Menu at Néctar

Néctar, located on Avenida 3 between Calles 30 and 32 in Colonia México, is where chef Roberto Solís has spent over a decade translating Yucatecan ingredients into a fine-dining vocabulary. During huaya season, he introduces a short tasting menu — typically four courses — that treats the fruit as both protagonist and supporting actor. Reserve directly by phone; these seatings fill within days of announcement.

The standout dish in recent seasons has been a huaya aguachile: raw kampachi sliced thin, draped in a huaya-habanero broth that balances the fruit's sweetness against serious capsaicin heat. It arrives in a shallow clay bowl with a single burnt tortilla shard. The acidity is entirely from the fruit — no lime, no vinegar — which gives it a rounder, more complex bite.

Solís also ferments huaya into a tepache-style drink served as a pairing, using piloncillo and a wild yeast starter cultivated from huaya skins. It's funky, slightly effervescent, and unlike anything you have tasted. Ask your server for the fermentation timeline; Solís is generous about explaining his process to genuinely curious diners.

Dinner runs approximately 1,800 to 2,200 pesos per person before drinks. The dining room is intimate — maybe twelve tables — and the energy is calm, cerebral, focused on the plate. Skip the international wine list and ask sommelier Mariana for the mezcal pairings, which are chosen specifically to complement the seasonal menu.

4. The Huaya Ice Cream Cart of Parque de Santa Lucía

Every Thursday evening during the season, a pale green cart appears at the northeast corner of Parque de Santa Lucía on Calle 60, operated by a woman known simply as Doña Ceci. She makes exactly two flavors: huaya with chile de árbol and huaya with coconut. Both are mixed by hand in a metal drum packed with ice and salt, churned until dense and slightly granular, more Italian granita than American soft-serve.

The huaya-chile version is the one to choose. It starts sweet and fragrant, then a slow burn builds at the back of your throat — not punishing, just present. It costs 35 pesos for a single scoop served in a small styrofoam cup. There's no signage; look for the cluster of locals queuing near the park's stone arches.

Doña Ceci sources her huaya from a family plot near Acanceh and refuses to make the ice when the fruit isn't at peak ripeness, which means some Thursdays she simply doesn't appear. This unpredictability is part of the charm, and regulars treat a Ceci sighting as a minor event worth texting friends about.

Pair the ice cream with the free Yucatecan trova music performances that happen in the same park on Thursday nights. The combination of jarana rhythms, warm evening air, and that slow chile burn is one of Mérida's most quietly perfect experiences.

5. Hacienda Sotuta de Peón: Cenote Swim Beneath Huaya Canopy

Thirty-five kilometres south of Mérida, Hacienda Sotuta de Peón is a restored henequen estate that offers guided visits by mule-drawn Decauville rail cart through agave fields to a private cenote. What most visitors miss is the dense grove of mature huaya trees flanking the cenote trail, heavy with fruit from June through mid-July. The estate's guides will pick fruit for you if you ask.

The cenote itself — a semi-open pool with turquoise water beneath a limestone overhang — is stunning, but the experience of eating freshly cracked huaya while drying off on the wooden platform afterward is what lingers. The fruit's cooling tartness works like a palate cleanser after the sulphurous mineral water.

Book the full hacienda tour, which includes a demonstration of henequen fiber processing, a traditional Yucatecan lunch of pollo pibil and papadzules, and the cenote swim. The complete visit runs about four hours and costs approximately 650 pesos per adult. Go on a weekday morning to avoid the cruise-ship overflow that sometimes arrives from Progreso on Saturdays.

The hacienda's small shop sells huaya preserves made on-site — a thick, amber jam that tastes faintly of guava and caramel. It keeps well and makes a far more interesting souvenir than vanilla extract. Buy two jars; you will regret not having a second once you spread it on toast back home.

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6. Huaya Cocktails at Apoala and the Santiago Mezcalería Circuit

Apoala, the Oaxacan-Yucatecan restaurant on Calle 60 between 61 and 63, facing Parque de Santa Lucía, runs a seasonal huaya margarita that uses muddled fruit, Oaxacan espadin mezcal, sal de gusano, and a float of habanero tincture. It's smoky, tropical, and dangerously easy to drink. Order it with the tlayuda appetizer and settle into the second-floor balcony overlooking the park.

Two blocks south, the mezcalería La Fundación de Artesanías on Calle 62 takes a more minimalist approach: huaya juice stirred into a jícara of pechuga mezcal, served without ice. The bartender, Iván, will walk you through how the fruit's acidity opens up the mezcal's herbal and fruit-distillate notes. It costs 180 pesos and is worth every centavo.

The informal crawl between Apoala, La Fundación, and the rooftop at Picheta on Calle 60 near Calle 55 constitutes what locals call the Santiago circuit — three bars within walking distance that each interpret seasonal Yucatecan fruit differently. Allow yourself a slow evening; the centro is safe and walkable, and the limestone buildings glow amber under streetlights.

Avoid Fridays and Saturdays when the circuit gets crowded with weekend visitors from CDMX. Tuesday and Wednesday nights offer the best bartender-to-patron ratio and the highest chance of encountering off-menu experiments using whatever fruit came in that morning.

7. Preserving the Season: Dulcería y Sorbetería El Colón

When the last huayas vanish from market stalls in early August, the flavour survives in concentrated form at Dulcería y Sorbetería El Colón on Calle 62 at the corner of Calle 61, across from the main cathedral plaza. This century-old sweets shop makes seasonal huaya paste — a firm, sliceable block similar to guava ate — and a huaya sorbet available only during the tail end of the season.

The paste is displayed in wax-paper-wrapped logs behind the glass counter, alongside their famous coconut and papaya dulces. Ask to taste before buying; the intensity varies batch to batch depending on that week's fruit delivery. A 200-gram block costs around 45 pesos. The texture is dense and chewy, somewhere between Turkish delight and membrillo.

The sorbet is churned daily in small batches and frequently sells out by early afternoon. It's less sweet than Doña Ceci's street version — more fruit-forward, almost winey — and served in a waffle cone or a small plastic tub. Order the tub; the cone distracts from the flavour.

El Colón has survived since 1907 by doing exactly this: preserving seasonal Yucatecan flavours in sugar and ice when the fresh fruit window closes. Buy the paste as edible souvenirs, packed in your carry-on, wrapped in an extra shirt. It travels well for up to three weeks unrefrigerated.