When Australian actor Nathalie Kelley and her then-boyfriend Jordan Burrows found themselves with a night to spare while holidaying last year in the boho “gypset” town of Tulum on Mexico’s Caribbean coastline, they decided to rent a car and create an adventure.

Kelley had recently wrapped her role as Cristal Carrington on the popular remake of Dynasty, and was enjoying some R&R with Burrows, a DJ and hospitality consultant. The pair had only 24 hours, but they’d heard good things about the difficult-to-get-to city of Mérida – the capital of Yucatán province, with a colourful Mayan and colonial heritage, and a four-hour drive west of Tulum.