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Published: September 27th 2011
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Valladolid
Pastels and sunshine and cobbled streets From the state of Quintana Roo to the state of Yucatan
Breakfast of empanadas in an open-air restaurant with painted wooden beams, white, sky blue and turquoise-green. Another ferry ride and we brush past a bus headed to Tizimin and we hop on, headed west and then a transfer to go south. This bus is kind of ratty and the windows are tinted dark green, thankfully obscuring the grimy wear-and-tear inside. We pass through multiple small towns, all planted around well-manicured centros. Each centro has a gazebo-type building in the middle with four paved paths radiating out around it, trimmed topiaries, S-curve benches. What era were those put into every town? What else is a holdover from that time? Many houses sport decorative cinder block walls with carved insets of Pegasi, swans, or flamingoes. The Pegasi tend to be as bright pink as the flamingoes. Pink seems to be a favored color here in this green-dominated land. There are pink houses, stores, trim, even a pink crypt.
A Valladolid! Our landing platform for the great Chichen Itza and our ruins adventures
What a cute colonial
We had read in our guidebook that Valladolid was a pretty colonial town. And
pretty and colonial it is. Cobbled streets and sidewalks, nicely ordered one-way streets, softly colored houses and stores. Many stores in the main downtown area cannot have large signs which would break that utopian colonial peace and order. This is a fair-sized town and there is hustle and bustle but no rushing, no running, no honking. Our guidebook referred to this place as "one sultry babe." Not sure I'd go that far but there is a languorousness and feminine beauty about the place.
After perusing various hostels and hotels (one is too posh, one too quiet, the last is just right…so we think), we go to THE restaurant in town, the Hosteria del Marques. The rooms here start at $700Mx which is only roughly $60US but is very pricey for these parts. But we read that the food is not too expensive so we’re willing to check it out. Our hotel is on along one of the main thoroughfares, close to the bus station, and the main centro. The Hosteria is along one of the streets surrounding the main centro. It’s a nondescript but tall grey building but as soon as we step through the wide double doors, we’re
Damn fine meal
Cochinita pibil (Yucatan-style pork) in the foreground, gourmet black beans and chile rellene in the background. in another Yucatan world. The five-star one. It’s a deep red-brown space, calm and luxurious. The restaurant tables surround an open-air atrium with a manicured lawn and trees that provide just the right level of wildness. Yellow lights that outline the hotel face, connected to but behind the restaurant, cascade down through the trees. Large paintings with ponderous frames break up the white walls.
The waitress is a slim young thing in traditional dress (an obvious marketing ploy since I’ve seen only much older women wear that dress on the streets) and an oversized fake flower in her hair. We have a solicitous but not chatty older waiter with mottled black cheeks and a hair net. He brings us excellence on a tray. This food is incredible! Cochinita pibil wrapped in banana leaves with bright purple pickled onion, gourmet refried beans (I didn’t think that was ever possible!), a rich chile relleno swimming in a marigold-yellow sauce, and fancy margaritas. We already know that this will be the best meal of our trip and we tuck in with relish. (And the cost is comparable to an ordinary tortas joint!!)
The town is quiet but for cars once we
It's got character, right?
The hotel room in Valladolid leave. So we wander back to our hotel and then we find out that perhaps we chose our hotel for the wrong reasons. I liked its character, a narrow hotel squished in between other buildings and a second story at the back where we were placed. We effectively get a balcony since the 2nd-story back rooms just open onto the roof though any view that would afford us is entirely blocked by the more kept-up front of the hotel. The room is sparse with an odd half-wall to mark of the toilet and an adjacent empty space with two coat hooks. The door may swing wide into open air but little of it seems to have made its way into the room, even when we leave the door open. It’s stuffy as all-get-out. But at least we seem to have outrun the mosquitoes! Those things drove me nearly wild at times in Holbox. Win some, lose some.
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