Before I go into detail about our travels, I want to explain about Connor. Connor has recently come out as a transgender woman, now going by the name Cara and using she/her/hers pronouns. I wanted to tell you this so you understand who Cara is.
Back to our trip....... We had had enough of the barking dogs at Ek Balam so we left our otherwise wonderful accommodation there and drove to the next main town, Valladolid. We got ourselves some rooms in a really lovely small hotel. It was gorgeous!
The town was quite touristy but everyone was so friendly. We had fun exploring it. There is an annual festival in Mexico called 'The Day of the Dead' where people dress up as skeletons to celebrate their ancestors. (Weird, I know.) These skeleton figures are everywhere.
Many buildings were painted in solid colours with white trims.
Some walls had special effects made by sticking stones in the render to make patterns.
We visited a museum owned by an American couple. They bought a really old, huge house and renovated it, then filled it with Mexican folk art from around the country. They then opened their home up to visitors. It was really spectacular. Even Cara, not known for liking museums, loved it.
Day of the Dead skeletons featured heavily.
Many pieces were brightly coloured.
There were several of these weird creatures but none of us can remember what they symbolised. I think they had something to do with newborn children but I could be wrong!
That night, it didn't take long for John to find a beer he liked - and it was called Victoria!
Just a lovely photo taken at a great vegetarian cafe we found.
In the town square we saw dancers one evening.
That night we went to a sound and light show which was shown on the local cathedral. It showed a very brief history of the town and the area. It was pretty good!
The main pyramid, El Castillo, is actually an enormous Mayan calendar. The numbers of terraces and steps add up to the days and months of the Mayan year.
These carvings were on a memorial to warriers who died in battle.
Serpent heads were popular in Mayan times.
Meanwhile, that amazing temple towered over everything.
Other buildings were ornately carved.
One disappointing aspect was that souvenir sellers were allowed to set up their stands all through the site. Rows of them lined paths between buildings. They certainly detracted from the feel of the place. At least some of their goods were wonderfully coloured!
I had hoped to be awed by Chichen Itza but I'm afraid it just didn't do it for me. It's strange how some places have an impact on us and some don't. Courtney felt it was special though.
We escaped the crowds and went to a cenote to cool off. It was very similar to the first one we visited, with long roots dripping gracefully into the cool water.
Cara and I explored the edges of the cenote and found swallows' nests, fish, ferns and rippled reflections. It was lovely.
The next day we left our lovely little hotel and moved westward, travelling through a few interesting Mayan villages and towns along the way. Uayma had an amazing church for a small village.
All through the Yucatan, every town has its name formed from large letters which were placed in a prominent position. It became a bit of a joke to us as they were always facing away from the sun, so I could never take good photos. I decided to go with the flow and took the photos with the sun behind me so the town names are backwards. This actually reads Uayma. Of course, the family had to do silly poses around the letters....
The next town also had an amazing church. I suspect the Spanish were trying to make a statement building all these huge churches in small towns as the area used to be a very important religious centre to the Mayans before the Spanish conquered them.
There was a fiesta happening in the town that weekend and all sorts of stalls were being erected and flags decorated the church and the town.
An entire arena was also being built from wood. We asked what it was for and it turns out they were going to have a bullfight the next day. I think the bullfights here are the real deal so we were really sad to hear this.
The next stop was Izamal, the "Yellow City", thus named because most of the buildings were painted yellow. We're not sure why!
Horse-drawn carriages waited outside popular tourist spots to carry tourists around the town. The carriages were highly decorated and some of the horse were too. I saw one horse with a yellow hat to match the yellow carriage and another had a unicorn horn on its forehead. Hmmmm.......
Now that we've started the backwards town sign thing, we're on a mission to do this everywhere!
We've also seen lots of those boards where you put your head in the hole and take a photo. We've all got to be a bit silly sometimes!
Right in the town are the remains of 12 pyramids. We climbed to the top of this one. It was so hot!
Our last stop in Yucatan state was Merida. This was quite a large city and driving through it to our small hotel was challenging. Thank goodness they use a lot of one-way streets!
We stayed in another quaint small hotel.
Merida is an old colonial city and some of the buildings were beautiful.
As expected in a still-developing country, for every beautiful building there were many more rough, ugly ones.
John and I were walking down a street one day and saw this tiny police car. The nearby policeman was more than happy to show it to us and opened it up so John could sit in it!
There's the backwards town sign again!
Day of the Dead statues are very popular here too. Many were beautifully made from ceramic.
Courtney, John and I went to an art display which was cool. Courtney got into the 'swing' of it!
We explored another historic building that had amazing, huge murals on the walls.
The town was very touristy. Some things, like this "Mayan Pub", were just plain tacky.
On the other hand, we found what must be the most popular bar in all of the Yucatan. On the outside this place just looks like a bar but inside, it was pumping! They have live Cuban samba music here and every man and his dog seems to love it. We went there the first night after dinner and couldn't even fight our way through the crowds to get a drink. We returned the next night at 5pm, an hour before the music started, and still had to wait for a table. The crowd were mostly locals and lots of people danced - or at least they tried to in the tiny spaces between people and tables. Courtney and I managed a dance or two!
We had mojitos by the glass and by the jar! Lots of free snacks were handed out with the drinks, which is quite typical in Mexico.
John and Courtney drank 23 year old rum. Courtney realised the rum was as old as she was!
On our last day in the Yucatan region we drove the hire car all the way back to Cancun and flew to Mexico City to start our travels in Mexico State. We had really enjoyed our Yucatan explorations.
Hasta luego!
Heather
thanks Heather - fantastic to follow you all (as usual). Mojitos in a jar.. bring them on! xBee
ReplyDeleteThey're the best Bee - you'd love them!
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