Rosie and The Operator are in Valladolid, a gem of a town known as The Mayan Pearl of The East. It is going to be a great hub for us to explore the area from for the next 4 nights. With a population of 74,000 people it is the third largest city in the Yucatan yet still retains a provincial, unhurried feel about it. Driving into town and seeing all the pastel coloured houses lining the narrow roads, the hand painted signage and flat fronted houses….Rosie knew this was going to be her kind of town.
We checked in a day early to our accommodation, Casa Mia Tiche. It is in the old town right by the centre square and all the action. They were able to accommodate us another night…(perfect English), no worries.
Like all houses in Mexico not much is revealed from the front. The house fronts form a wall along the street, where one house ends and another starts is only differentiated by a change of colour. The front door opens straight to the footpath and there could be one or two windows in the wall as well. But open the front door and inside, its like the houses open up and just keeps going and going and going.
From our front door you entered a small vestibule, the vestibule then turned into an open air pathway between two buildings and the rooms were to the left and the right. At the end of the corridor, a huge patio garden opened up in front of us, lush, green and teeming with….mosquitoes. Yes, Rosie was like a magnet to them…..even with repellent on I was one tasty blood bag. The Operator, not a single bite.
Our room was large, cool and insect free, thanks to The Operators vigilance with a can of mosquito spray. It was tucked just far enough away from the road to be totally nice and quiet.
Life in Valladolid rotates around the Parque Francisco Canton Rosado. It is a beautiful town square green space with tall flowering trees, seating and sellers of delicious dessert treats that always have ques every night in front of their stands, shoe shines and toy sellers.
The beautiful Catedral de San Gervasio stands proudly overlooking the square, there always seems to be something going on here, so many locals come and go in big groups outside regular mass times.
The city hall is above one of the porticos that line two sides of the square, upstairs is the avenue of the mayors who have served the town, Rosie can say they don’t last long in this town…the only lady…she was gone in 3 months.
They also have some large murals depicting the history of the town that can be viewed. The first Spanish settlement was founded just out of town by the lagoon in 1543. The Spanish couldn’t stand the mosquitoes…thank god it isn’t just Rosie, so they upped sticks and moved down the road into current day Valladolid. They faced heavy resistance from the Mayan natives but eventually the Spanish conquered them, ripped down their ancient town and built there new one, which is the current footprint of the town today. The Mayan were exploited by the Spanish and banned from entering any part of the new city, this was happening all over Mexico and it was here, in Valladolid that the uprising began against the Spanish that would be The War of the Castes in 1847. After a months siege, the Spanish were over come and a tense peace and unity developed.
The views from the windows of the mural gallery were exceptionally good, seeing as this was as high as we were going to get in town.
Restaurants and shops line the roadside of the square and its nice to sit here with a cold beer and watch the goings on of the day.
Not yet Rosie, we have a tour to go on and there is only one tour a day happening at Casa de los Venados and we have to get there before 10am as they don’t let anyone in after 10.
Rosie and The Operator were the first waiting outside the doors, then we were joined by a couple of Europeans. At 1000 sharp the doors opened and we were welcomed in, great, a nice small tour. We were being welcomed and getting the introduction in the hallway when at 1010 there was a loud banging on the door….a group of Americans had arrived…no apologies for being late…their excuse….we are on ‘Mexican time’ they joked and laughed. Thats funny said The Operator, the Mexicans werent late….lead balloon.
Casa de los Venados was bought as a decrepit shell by an American couple in the early 2000s. It was rebuilt and renovated as their 1800 square metre home. In the living rooms, guest suites, kitchen and hallways is their amazing private collection of Mexican Folk Art that they have been collecting for over 40 years.
It is not a museum, they call it their home, and like to welcome visitors into their home, once a day, for one guided tour only to view the collection and share it with their new friends.
True enough, the owner was sitting in the courtyard by the fountain having a coffee and reading the paper as our tour swirled through.
What a place and what a collection, they have traveled over the years extensively throughout Mexico and have a real affinity for the people and their art works. The collection is incredible and we wandered from room to room with our tour guide as he explained bits and pieces to us.
Rosie loves the colour and simplicity of these art works…..it is one crazy collection. All they ask is for a donation at the end of the tour and it all goes to back to the community.
Now it is time for a spot of lunch and to take a moment to watch the world go by…it is still raining, so it seems like a good idea.
We watch a man pushing a barrow around the square, he is selling red spiky fruit, Rosie cannot pick it. We wander over after lunch and he tells us that the fruit is called Rambutan, it is native to Mexico.
He gave Rosie a sample, cut the fruit around the middle, pull the top off and the fruit is sitting there like a white glistening ball and is easily lifted out of the bottom husk.
Inside the fruit is white and juicy and it tastes exactly like lychee…..ooops, he didn’t say there was a large piplike stone in the middle….Rosie just bit into it and it is soft and bitter like an apple pip. The Operator buys 6 pieces of fruit for 6pesos….they were yummy.
Even though it is raining, it is still hot and sticky, we walk 50 metres down the road to Cenote Zaci, a huge sinkhole turned swimming pool right in the middle of town.
WOW – what a place, it is twenty times bigger than the Grand Cenote in Tulum, we keep walking down, down, down the steps carved into the limestone into the bowls of this cave.
What an amazing place, birds fly in and out of it, the water is blue, stalagtites hang from the ceiling and foliage from the surface hangs over the rim. Viewing and diving balconies are built into the rock as you traverse around and there is a restaurant up on the surface as well to. In the cave, the humididty is high and you are thankful to get into the water….there are only a couple of entry shelves you can stand on where the water is up to your kness before taking one more step into depths unknown.
It is an incredible place, the water was colder than you would think it would be, once again you could only stay in for about half an hour before it became to cold. Amazing, once again lying on you back in the bottom of a cave looking up through a hole in the earth into the sky.
After a refreshing dip we went to visit an Artisanal Agave Distillery who still made their Tequila the traditional way. It is set in a giant shady hacienda and looking out from the portico porch are fields of the spiky blue leafed cactus.
The cactus only flower at night and bats are the pollinators…amazing stuff huh? There is a little crisis going on in Mexico though as the bats are loosing their natural habitat, making for a decline in the bat population. This follows through with the agave not being pollinated….making a Tequila shortage in Mexico!
It takes 7/8 years for the agave pineapple as they call it to grow until it sweet enough to be harvested and made into Tequila. The pineapples are picked and then put into this giant oven where a fire is lit underneath and they are slow cooked, they are left in the oven for 4 days so the pineapples become infused with the smoke which gives this distillery its distinct flavour.
Next the softened, fibrous pineapples are crushed to break down the fiber. They actually still do the crushing with a donkey turning the giant mill wheel, serious.
Then into the distiller. We sampled their whole range of Tequila starting with the Blanco (the least aged) through to the Reposado, which is aged in mexican oak barrels and then two of their especial brews….Rosie palmed her samples after the Reposado off to The Operator….not really her thing.
We went to dinner on the square to a lovely place called Meson Dei Marquez. The restaurant is built around a central gardan open to the elements, the fountain was bubbling and the rain was falling and we were seated around the covered internal portico just out of the rains splash line.
Fans were twirling in the veranda ceiling and strings of lights made it feel so festive as the light faded and the meal, well that was devine! The Operator had a beautiful Soupa de Lima to start which is a local specialty, chicken broth with lime and special spices it was delicious and tangy. Rosie opted for the avocado gastpatcho which was divine too.
The we both had a Mexican Hangi. The pork is rolled and stuffed with all sorts, spices, nuts etc like stuffing, it is then wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in the ground for 12 hours, when it comes to you on the plate it lies in a rich creamy gravy. We had that with spiced pickled cabbage and a stack of tortillas. Washed down with a few margaritas it was a good night.
Wandering home through the park in the main square we stopped at one of the little carts and bought a marquesita for dessert. They are very popular here and there are many vendors selling them. A batter is poured into a waffle type iron, the batter spreads into a big circle when cooking, in about 30 seconds the thin crepe like waffle is cooked, the pan opened up and your choice of filling put on the waffle before it it is rolled up and presented to you in a paper wrapper.
The most popular filling was Nutella and grated gouda cheese…serious. Rosie opted for a banana and Nutella one to share. They were so yummy, the waffle tasted like a warm soft version of a waffle ice cream cone. $30 pesos = #2NZD.
What a great start to our time in Valladolid, tomorrow we are out to visit another ancient sight and watch some World Cup Soccer as Mexico makes its debut bid for the World Cup.
