Blogs from Valladolid, Yucatán, Mexico, North America - page 3

Que tal! Had a shortish bus trip from Playa to Valladolid. Been very impressed with the bus service here. I had read that in Valladolid very few people spoke English so was excited to practice our spanish which I think we are both doing quite well...along with hand gestures. Valladolid is a cute colonial type town and our hostel was next to a nice square and church. In the middle of Valladolid is a square full of trees where allthe local families hang out instead sitting at home in front of a tv like we all do. The buildings are all painted diffrrent colours. From Valladolid we did a day trip out to Chichen Itza and Il-Kil, a sink hole you can swim in. We got to Chichen Itza early to beat the crowds and the ... read more

Thursday February 27, 2014 This morning I was up too early for the breakfast provided by the hotel, but the nice señora who runs the place set aside some food for me after she heard about my morning tour. The people here are universally pleasant, helpful, and smiling. The tour minivan picked me up at 7:00 and there were two other people besides me. They were a retired couple who travel a lot and were nice company. The driver/guide drove us 90 minutes north to a wildlife preserve called Ria Lagartos (Alligator Water). We boarded a small motorboat and spent the next three hours moving slowly through the mangroves. We saw quite a number of different birds and even a crocodile. (Despite its name, there are no alligators here.) The ultimate destination was the salt flats ... read more

Valladolid is the perfect place to use as a base while in the Yucatan. There are some tourists that come on buses from Cancun, Tulum, and Playa del Carmen, and thus some gringo-targeted shops and restaurants around the central park, but aside from that and an enclave of hotels on Los Frailes, it's an authentic Mexican small city that pays little attention to tourists. It's particularly refreshing after spending some time in Belize and Tulum, where the main attractions are beaches and activities, and not as much people and culture. Everyone is far friendlier inland and the city is perfectly clean, safe, and easy to navigate (all streets are in fact numbered and on a grid). It's also quite hot there, at least in late July. It was in the mid-nineties (F) every day and fairly ... read more

We rent bikes to journey about 7km (4.3mi) west of Valladolid to two well-known cenotes. All I know about these things is that these are limestone sinkholes filled with fresh water and they’re well worth jumping in. The Yucatan peninsula is scattered with these formations, around 2,000 actually and they’re what kept many Mayan villages alive. Today, several of the more touristy cenotes are owned, run, and maintained by Mayan collectives (ejidos). Our bike ride takes us along a highway and then at a worn wooden sign marking the cenotes, we bear left. The forest hems in on us along our barely paved bike patch and I’m starting to flag due to the humidity. Heat I can stand, humidity wipes me out. Sweat drops, rolls, pools all over my body. But I keep pushing and finally ... read more

This weekend Cory and I visited a most charming Mexican town on the Yucatan peninsula with immense Mayan influence, Valladolid. Pronounced Valley-o-dally. Or Volley-doe-lolly. Or Valalalalada!  Only Cory can pronounce it correctly, so I kept him entertained with my tongue-twisted options! Valladolid is surrounded by dense flat jungle hiding Mayan ruins and dozens of cenotes. Cenotes are ancient collapsed cave systems filled with clear freshwater that are fed through an expansive underground river system. Their geologic formations go back to the meteorite that was believed to strike the Yucatan Peninsula over 65 million years ago and wipe out the dinosaurs. This impact dotted the soft limestone rock of the peninsula with fissures and cracks of varying sizes. Over millions of years, the porous limestone allowed water to seep through its numerous cracks forming gigantic caves ... read more