Kikteil

North of Mérida, on the west side of the road out to the port of Progreso, Kikteil sits about 22 km from downtown and is governed from Mérida as a subcomisaría. Its name is Maya for the hog plum (Spondias mombin), the tree Yucatecans call ciruelo. The 2020 count found 243 residents, not far off the 146 recorded in 1900; for most of the time since then the village has held somewhere between 200 and 300 people. Cisteil, over in Yaxkabá municipality, is a different place with a similar-sounding name.

Village life was organised around a hacienda, and that estate had a direct tie to Suytunchén, a short way south-west: Suytunchén started out as Kikteil's annex, under the Santa Ana parish in Mérida. When President Lázaro Cárdenas decreed his land reform in 1937, the fields were handed over as an ejido, farmed in common by local families, but the main estate buildings remained privately owned. A gateway and stone walls, half swallowed by scrub, are what survive.

In the village you'll find a Catholic church, the comisaría, two little parks, a sports court, plus a kindergarten and primary school. No facilities exist for visitors. Treat it as a brief pause on a drive around the former estate villages north of Mérida, along with Dzidzilché, just 2 km north, and Suytunchén, whose hacienda has been restored.