Tulum Mexico vacation, February 2023
Adventure for Noel and Lionel Space, Nanaimo BC
Valladolid, 2/25-27/2023
(Photos can be clicked on for a larger view)

Valladolid is a town that is the third largest city in the state of Yucatan (population: 56,000), touted as "an incredible destination". When we vacation, we like to get out into the area and see the differences in culture, rather than just go for the weather in one spot. We spent 2 nights in downtown Vallodolid, just across the street from the big church and kitty-corner to the nice city center park. We had two good eating experiences, but I'll warn in advance, that we were not impressed by much of what we experienced, so don't look for the exciting conclusion in this report.

We found our hotel without much difficulty, since it is on the main street that goes into and out of Valladolid. It fortunately has it's own parking lot off the street, so we entered from the side entrance where the lot is. As we approached the front desk, the smell of freshly baked bread was everywhere. There is a Domino's pizza just on the other side of the front desk (in the same building) and you can see guests eating in it from the pool. Once settled in, we stepped out onto the street and the church is right there. It's a good size church, but the embellishments outside and in are no way near the intricacy of what is seen in Europe.
 
View of the church from the street outside our hotel. 
 
View from the park of the front of the church. 
 
Church lit up at night. 
 
Inside next day during Sunday service. 
 
Street entrance to Hotel San Clemente from Church grounds.
Pizza on the left, Burgers on the right. 

The city park is across the street from the church. It's one city block square, with trees, benches, and a fountain in the center with a circular walk around. A half dozen food vendors were available and on one street on the outside of the park were vendors of the usual tourist memorabilia. One special vendor always had a long line, furiously making quesitas for about $3 a piece that were absolutely delicious. Noel and I each had a Kiwi/Strawberry/Nuttella wrapped in a thin waffle shell. Sunday saw all the tour buses stop for a visit to the park.
 
View of the church looking across the park. 
 
View from inside park. 
 
Fountain in the center of the park. 
 
Placard in the park. 
 
This man works nonstop all day, making quesitas at about one every 2 minutes. 
 
 
 
Yum. 
 
Sunday was inundated by tour buses returning from Chichen-Itza. 
 
 

We checked out the various restaurants around the square, which boiled down to 3. We chose to dine at El Atrio, adjacent to the church. They have a lovely outdoor garden area at the back, the waiters spoke English and were courteous, happy, and professional. The food was extremely reasonably priced and absolutely delicious, probably the highlight of the whole trip. We were startled to hear the church bells ring loudly (3 slow bells, 29 fast bells, then another 1 to 3 bells) at 6:30, 6:45, and 7:00.
 
Entrance to a fabulous restaurant. 
 
The back garden area of the restaurant. Church in the background. 
 
 
 
 

We had an early rise on Sunday, which was not exactly planned. Apparently the church rings it's bells in the morning as well, at 6:30, 6:45, and 7:00. We all had breakfast in the courtyard of the hotel, where food is served. I had a ham and cheese omelet, which consisted of one slice of sliced ham folded in half at one end of the omelet, and barely perceptible inkling of cheese; at least it was edible. They also include toast, which is white bread toasted on one side. The supplied butter is small butter packs that have been melted and frozen (probably more than once) and have long since separated into something that no longer resembles butter.

After a short break, Noel and I took a stroll in search of the Calzada de Los Frailes (Causeway of the Friars). After just a few blocks from the hotel, there was a sign to let us know we were on our way. It is identifiable because it goes off at an angle, where all the other streets in town are in a grid pattern and almost all are one way. There a few specialty shops along the street that sell goods other than the normal tourist memorabilia, but at significant prices. We stopped for some drinks in a nice shop and I failed again to find any kind of chocolate drink that actually has some chocolate flavor. We didn't make any other purchases along the street. I was surprised to see a couple of really nice residences along this street out of maybe 4 in the town along our walks; most of Valladolid that we were witness to, I would consider a ghetto in North America. The street ends at a plaza where an old church is; one that we would return to later that evening.
 
At least there was a sign to let us know we had found it. 
 
Several small shops along a non-busy street. 
 
 
 
 
 
The nicest residence we saw in all of Valladolid was along this street. 
 
There was also a hotel along the street that was probably nicer than ours. 
 
A store entrance. 
 
Church at the end of the street. 

We decided to go back to the hotel on the next block over, which we knew to lead back to the hotel, just to see something different. Every street is a one way street, with parking on the right, and often motor bikes whipping in between moving traffic and parked cars. Wires cross everywhere above and connect in all manner of fashion to the buildings; there seem to be no building codes for anything in Mexico. Some of the wiring coming out of the electrical panels was downright scary. Houses must be older than the natural gas supplied and it is piped in roughly with no concern other than it works. Street gutters are novel, where they are a V cut in the road resulting in a sidewalk that is only about 4 cm higher than the street, only about 12 cm across, and keeps the debris from blowing out.
 
41st street. 
 
Lots of motor bikes. 
 
Half the motor cyclists wear their helmets backwards;
maybe to keep the sun off their necks. 
 
Sidewalks require constant vigilance.
This section was in front of a used shoe shop. 
 
A maze of wires.
 
 
This line was only one inch above my head when I stood under it
and I'm only 5-9. Notice the wire emanating from the meter in the center of the pic. 
 
A surprise nice residence amongst the poverty of elsewhere.
 
 
Typical supply of gas line.
 
 
Interesting gutter implementation.
 
 
A rare mural. 
 
Rare spacious parking.
 

After a bit of a rest at the hotel to cool off, we got a bite to eat. Since Dave was on crutches, Dorothy and Dave decided to hit Domino's. Noel and I wanted to try some more local culture, so we went to the restaurant on the corner, past El Atrio. All the tables were full, but we quickly grabbed one when a couple left. I was interested in trying the Mushroom and Potato Quesadilla and Noel ordered Guacamole with Tortilla Chips. When the food arrived, I was a bit disappointed. It did not look like any Quesadilla I had seen before and it had a sour oil smell to it. I took one bite and decided I could not eat it. I tried a potato from inside and it also tasted a bit rancid. Noel had similar luck with her Guacamole and gave up after one bite. So we paid our bill and went for a walk in the park. Fortunately Dorothy had save two pieces of pizza which she graciously offered to me.

There was a 20 minute presentation at 9:30 pm back at the church we had seen earlier in the day. We hired a taxi to take us there and back (only 90 pesos) for the 1.5 mile distance away. We sat on the walkway inside the short wall. They use 4 projectors on poles from behind us to display a history of the town on the church building side, with a loud sound system in front of us. It was interesting, but was not impressive. There were many long pauses with just background music and the time line of the story bounced around a bit. Afterward, there was a troupe of 4 dancers with drums beating in a small plaza area near a parking lot next door.
 
City sign with church in the background. 
 
Presentation on church surface. 
 
 
 
Dancing performance after the presentation. 

So we were able to experience the "magical" town of Valladolid. We planned to leave Monday morning and be back in Tulum. Dave and Dorothy were up early and I ate with them. Dave had ordered hot cakes with bacon, but no bacon was on the plate. He told the waitress twice more that he had ordered bacon; she finally brought him bacon 5 minutes after his hot cakes had been finished Since we didn't want to spend too much time before hitting the road, Noel later also ate at the hotel and ordered eggs with bacon, while pointing to it on the menu; after a long wait, the waiter brought her hot cakes with bacon.

 
Unusual electrical outlet in the hotel bathroom. 

We got to experience some of the local culture, which we were after. It was interesting that in these modern times and in a major city, that so much of the infrastructure seems so makeshift. Most construction I've seen within Mexico seems to have been built by an inexperienced DIYer with no regard to proper techniques and then maintained by an untrained teenager.

We had been informed that there would be craft vendors in the city park, which were not present.

In the park by the fountain on Sunday, there was a troupe of a half a dozen women dancing to some cultural music in ceremonial costume for the tour buses, but some other guy simultaneously set up his own speaker on the opposite side of the fountain with his own speaker playing rock just as loudly as he held out a half coconut shell asking for donations.

Circumstances prevented a few of our planned adventures on this trip. We had hoped to visit a market place at the other end of town and had wanted to see some other cenotes in the area.

We discovered on this trip that the 30 day sim card TelCel service we had purchased for our phones only lasted 15 days. We should have taken a photo of the promotion card at time of purchase, as the reciept was just codes and there was a different sign when we went to complain about our terminated service.

We made a stop at a couple of the vendors just West of Tulum and made some not-inexpensive memorabilia purchases to bring home, then arrived safely back in Tulum.

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