Cholul

Cholul is a comisaría of Mérida municipality about 11 km northeast of the centre of the city, on the road to Motul. Urban growth has turned it into a suburb of the capital, and at the 2020 census it had 11,745 inhabitants. Its Maya name is translated as "wood in the water"; between 1910 and 1921 it was officially called Chelul.

The heart of Cholul is still a village centre. The yellow church of San Pedro Apóstol, with a stepped belfry and a stone arched gateway in front of its atrium, faces a large shady main park. In the park are an old noria, a well with a stone frame from which water was once drawn, and a cenote: a dark, narrow cave with stone steps leading down to the water among tree roots, protected by a railing. Nearby are a stone tablet engraved with phrases from the Chilam Balam, the colonial-era books of Maya prophecy and history, and the village market on a street of old single-storey buildings.

On the edge of town stand reminders of Cholul's past as a henequen area: the building of the old railway station, now shops, and the overgrown ruins of the ex-Hacienda San Pedro Cholul with its brick chimney. Cholul is a quick stop on the way out of Mérida toward Conkal or Motul, and its main park is a pleasant place to sit in the shade.