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Marie and Caitlin got up early enough this morning to take part in the rooftop yoga class they’d missed earlier in the week while I stayed behind and updated the blog and organized my pictures, etc. And maybe watched another episode of Peaky Blinders…
When Marie and Caitlin got back – with a sweaty, post yoga glow, we all chowed down on the last of our fruit, yogurt and granola and finished packing and getting ready to leave for Valladolid. Milko stopped by just before Caitlin and Marie got back and we chatted for a few minutes about the property and their plans to provide bicycles (really the only suggestion for improvement we had). We’re a little sad to leave the apartment and Puerto Morelos in general – the apartment is on the high side of what we pay for places when we’re traveling but the location turned out to be absolutely perfect and the amenities of the apartment were greatly appreciated. Not to mention the perfectly laid back vibe of Puerto Morelos, the beautiful beaches and the inexpensive food and drinks… But, all good things must end and at 11:30 we said goodbye to Casa Mae and piled into our waiting taxi for the 45 minute drive to the Cancun bus station and our bus to Valladolid.
The bus station – like bus stations the world over it seems – was a study in barely controlled chaos. Thankfully we’d purchased our tickets a day earlier in Puerto Morelos because the line to buy tickets was quite long and people sort of shuffled along in a heat induced stupor. We eventually figured out the system and found a place to wait for our bus where we weren’t in anyone’s way and weren’t getting dripped on by the water dripping down from the washrooms above.
It took us a minute to figure out that our bus wasn’t signed for Valladolid because that’s just a stop on the longer trip to Merida. The buses show up about 15 minutes before departure and then you pile on and they pull out roughly on time. No fuss no muss! Despite having selected our seats when we purchased the tickets, there was no assigned seating (in fact, one of the seats we’d booked wasn’t actually on the bus) but we were among the first on so were able to get seats at the front (dangerous if you’re in an accident but a necessity when traveling with Marie… who gets motion sick in parked cars…). Because Caitlin is lugging a small roller style carry-on suitcase, our bags were relegated to the luggage hold (Marie and my backpack carry-ons would probably have been okay) but there was loads of room and it appeared pretty dry (unlike our last Yucatán bus ride where our bags got utterly drenched in the luggage hold). Although we were travelling on a second class bus, it was in excellent shape and was very clean and comfortably air-conditioned. About the only negative was the driver’s choice of radio station which alternated between dirge-like laments, hysterical canned laugh tracks and wildly upbeat pop songs… all played at ear-splitting volumes… and in utterly incomprehensible Spanish…
I’d forgotten there was a time change between the coast and Valladolid so the bus ride took just over 3 hours instead of 2… not a big deal… except for Caitlin who’d pounded an ice tea just before we boarded and was in desperate need of the baño by the time we arrived. Other than that, the trip passed pretty uneventfully. We stopped a few times to let people on and off along the way and a few women boarded at various places with food and snacks to sell (they would then get off at the next stop and presumably ride the next bus going in the opposite direction back to where they started). I also watched the last episode of Peaky Blinders – if you haven’t started the series yet, make sure you set aside a weekend or two to binge watch it… it’s really good!
On arriving in Valladolid, we grabbed our bags from the luggage holds while Caitlin threw a couple of truly impressive elbows on her way to the baño to unload the ice tea she’d consumed before boarding. That kid can really motor when she needs to and her time in Uganda seems to have taught her a few news moves for navigating crowds and getting to the front of the lines… Somewhere in Valladolid, there’s a sweet little old lady telling her grandchildren epic tales of that time the gringa beat her to the can…
After visiting the bano we headed out into the late afternoon sunshine and discovered that Valladolid is MUCH hotter than Puerto Morelos. We were sweating in seconds. It took us a few minutes to figure out the street system and to get oriented. Okay.. to be honest, it was mostly me… I thought the arrow on the street sign was telling us that we could find Calle 42 in the direction it was pointing to… turned out we were on Calle 42 and the arrow was telling us that the street ran in that direction… who knew…Caitlin figured it out quite quickly then totally duffed when she pointed in the direction she thought we needed to go… Marie has no sense of direction (I’m not kidding… she has none at all… I swear she has gotten lost in hotel rooms…) and was mostly just supervising… It was not Caitlin’s, nor my, finest navigational moment but thankfully we figured it all out pretty quickly. Once we got oriented, it was a quick walk up Calle 42 to our hotel – Casa Hipil – a small boutique style hotel with really good booking.com ratings. We also figured out that addresses here are given with the cross streets (as in Calle 42 x 37 y 35) which is really helpful because it tells you that you’ll find your desired address on Calle 42 between Calle 37 and Calle 35… This is necessary as few if, if any, places actually have place numbers on them…
Our room was ready for us when we arrived and everything was as expected (another successful booking.com booking). The hotel is sort of like a hostel with a small kitchen area that can be used by guests and our room was quite comfortable with a king size bed for Marie and I and a twin sized bunk bed for Caitlin. They even used Sealy pillow top mattresses. If you have ever travelled outside North America, you will know that incredibly hard mattresses are the norm everywhere else it seems so this was kind of a pleasant surprise… The bathroom was interesting too as it was one room with two sinks in the middle and a toilet stall and shower on either side… very convenient when traveling with more than 2 people. The bunk beds were set up with individual reading lights and fans and the room had air conditioning and a couple of ceiling fans so was quite comfortable despite the heat and mugginess outside… and it had a small fridge… in all, a very comfortable room and nicely laid out for families.
After dropping our bags off in the room, we headed out to find something to eat. We settled on a small restaurant right on the main city square (never a good choice in terms of prices but we were pretty hungry and thirsty and the place looked nice). The websites that tell you Valladolid is off the tourist path are full of mierda… This place is packed with tourists… most of them coming on tour buses from Cancun visiting Chichen Itza and other sites on the Yucatan but there’s also a lot of people staying in the town… The main square was jammed with tourists and tour buses and our restaurant was right beside a busy corner… with its own whistle-happy traffic cop… who kept blowing her whistle incessantly and for no particularly apparent reason. She took a brief break when the rain came but it did not last nearly enough and after an early getup and a few hours of travel and the heat and mugginess, Caitlin was quite willing to storm into the intersection and ram the whistle someplace the sun don’t shine… Full marks to the traffic cop, though, she could achieve almost eardrum piercing volume and pitch from a little plastic whistle… definitely something she has practiced… Strangely, we noticed no apparent change in the flow of traffic when she parked herself under an overhang during a rainstorm but I’m sure she serves some purpose other than tempting hangry tourists to homicide…
After our late lunch, we sort of wandered around a bit before heading back to the hotel… along the way we stopped at a little cafe called Cafe Pitigoras (Cafe Pythagoras) for a cup of coffee and to play a game of cards… we might also have had a piece of cake…. it might have been delicious… even if it didn’t come with chocolate as the menu said… and even if it wasn’t a pancake as stated in the menu… After our coffees and chocolate and orange pancake with neither pancake nor chocolate, we were a bit done in by the crush of tour buses and tourists and the heat and traffic after the laid back atmosphere of Puerto Morelos so we headed back to the room to relax a bit before dinner… and to let the headache that the traffic cop’s whistle had given Caitlin subside a bit.
While Caitlin and Marie were relaxing, I headed out into the wilds in search of the elusive cervezas… they were a bit harder to find than in Puerto Morelos but I eventually prevailed and returned to the room armed with a six pack of cold Sols and a better sense of where we were and what was around us… and the knowledge that most of the tour buses had left and the traffic cop appeared to have gone off shift so it was safe for Caitlin to emerge once again… safe for the traffic cop that is…
We wandered around a little bit looking at various restaurants before settling on one that looked really nice but was really deserted… We chose it mainly because their prices were pretty good but it turned out to be a great decision. They had a huge open air courtyard and a small raised platform in a tree… with the LED lights wrapped around the trunks of trees and strings of lights hanging from the branches it was very magical… and the food was quite good and the service was excellent. We ended up having a couple of beers and even a round of tequilas for everyone (1800 Anejo – it was delicious!). After the initial heat and tourist chaos, Valladolid had done a pretty good job of redeeming itself.
