2023 Mexico – Valladolid
18th January 2022
Our drive to Valladolid was very pleasant and thanks to the wonderful Google Maps we were shown faultlessly to our next stop, The Casa Quetzal Hotel. Quetzal was the name of a bird that was very important in Mayan culture. That night we walked through the town which consisted of some very pretty little restaurants, antique shops and the usual souvenir shops. We bought a few little things but the absurd prices made any bigger investment out of the question. There was a carving of a cow’s face hanging on the wall with a wonderful expression that suggested an apology for his recent contribution to greenhouse gas. We both loved it and would have bought it but couldn’t bring ourselves to pay £100 for something we would normally cost around £20 at most. A little further on was a large town square with a park in the middle where there was always something going on. 
We had dinner in a lovely old restaurant with a high ceiling and a Mexican singer in a face mask playing a Spanish guitar. He was playing horrible singalong songs that I suppose he thought tourists wanted but everyone was ignoring him. I think out of desperation he played a song from the Buena Vista social club which suited him much better, so he became a joy to listen to. I applauded eagerly when he finished and as usually happens, all the other diners clapped so from then on he played only Spanish songs that everyone liked.
The hotel served breakfast every morning in the lovely inner courtyard with lots of plants and the delightful sound of birds singing. What a great way to start the day. On our first morning, we drove eagerly to one of the seven wonders of the world, the ancient Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá. Our hotel receptionist warned us about scams on the way so when groups of Mexicans stepped out and waved us over, we were ready for them. They all had official-looking badges and with great authority, they stepped out and told us to pull over. To their great annoyance, we ignored them and drove on. It turned out that they were guiding tourists to off-site parking spaces which they charged for despite the official car park being much closer to the ruins and free.
Just as we were parking our car, several men with badges approached us offering their “official” guide service. We wanted a guide anyway so after agreeing on a price the man asked us to give him the fee for his service plus the £50 entry fee. There was no logical reason to give him the entrance fee so I refused and he lost interest. We had no trouble finding a genuine guide at the entrance.
I always find it breathtaking when I first catch sight of one of these world-famous places. 
The main ruin was at the entrance and our guide explained all the stuff about astrology which the Mayans were really into. The “thing to do” was to stand in front of it and clap your hands which had a very strange echo effect. Many years earlier it had been possible to climb up the steps, but it was no longer permitted. That was just as well as I wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation to climb up, which might well have resulted in me having to be airlifted down.
Of particular interest to me was the arena where warriors played a weird ball game called pitz. It consisted of two teams running around at ground level and a captain on each side running along a ledge a couple of meters above the players. The ball was made of solid rubber, was six inches wide and weighed about three kilos. The object of the game was for players to pass the ball to each other until they could throw it up to the captain who had to throw it through a small concrete hoop that was three metres up the wall. The tricky bit was that players were not allowed to use their feet, head or hands when passing the ball. It seemed impossible to me that anyone could throw such a large heavy ball through such a small concrete hoop, but evidently, they did. 
A game could last anything between an hour and a week. The most extraordinary thing was the prize. The captain of the side that won was given the grand honour of having his head cut off. They believed in reincarnation, so winning such a big prize meant they came back as something really cool, like a God or a guitarist. Religious rituals were always a mystery to me, but this one was particularly baffling. You take part in a ball game; you win; you are sacrificed to the Gods and then you are reborn. What if you come back as yourself? What if the first thing that happens to you after rebirth is you are sacrificed? What if you come back as a God and the only thing you get to do is sit around all day watching people getting sacrificed? If someone is being killed in your honour, you can hardly apologise and nip off round the pub during the show. Maybe the guide was exaggerating and the winner just got slapped around a bit, but it still sounded a bit daft to me.
Our tour guide was Mayan and so had a good knowledge of his culture and the ruins. Before leaving the site we looked around at the stalls where they were selling some nice things but all so expensive. There were literally hundreds of stalls and during the three hours we were there I never saw a single person buying anything. Many of the articles were very well made and they might well have been worth the asking price, but I don’t think people go to these places with the intention of paying hundreds of dollars for souvenirs.
Our next stop was the nearby cenote, Tsukán. Cenotes are underground caves or waterways. Tsukán advertised an attractive-looking restaurant but despite being in the middle of the tourist season it was closed for renovations. Our only option was a small hut selling snacks where the choice was tacos or nachos. There were lots of cenotes around Mexico and I suppose all of them had different things to offer. At Tsukán the facilities were very good, offering substantial changing rooms and a tourist shop. Surprisingly, the entry fee was about the same as Chichén-Itzá. We got changed, put our clothes in a locker and took a compulsory cold shower before going into the water.
It was compulsory for everyone to wear life jackets which seemed a bit over-the-top considering there was also a lifeguard on duty and a total absence of waves or strong currents. To get to the cenote we had to walk down a lot of stone steps that started in the bright sunshine and got cooler as we went further underground. The cenote was a large cave with a hole in the top which lit up the area. All around the cave were impressive stalactites that didn’t quite touch the water. Being so deep underground, I assumed the water was going to be freezing but although far from being thermal, it was perfectly acceptable. I quite liked wearing the life jacket as it removed the obligation to swim. I could just float around and admire the surroundings like in a dream. We enjoyed it but there was only so much floating around you can do so after ten minutes we got out and were happy to get back to the warm sunshine.
Next to our hotel, there was a convent with a large lawn in front and on the way back from dinner one night we found they were projecting a very impressive video onto the front of the building. They were narrating a detailed history of the building which was very interesting and involved lots of killing.
On our second day we went to another famous ruin Ek Balam. A few kilometres before the entrance there were men blocking the road with cones, demanding money for various services. By now, we had got wise to the scam so when they realised I was going to run over their cones, they quickly moved them out of the way. The police must have been aware of this highway robbery so I assumed they just don’t care. We didn’t bother with a guide this time and whilst it was a pleasant visit, it was a bit of a comedown after Chichén-Itzá. What was surprising was that despite charging the same entrance fee as Chichén-Itzá, in Ek Balam there was not a single notice in front of any ruin, not even a title let alone an explanation.
After lunch we went to the local cenote. It was within walking distance of the ruins and costing a fraction of the Tsukán cenote I wasn’t expecting much but it turned out to be much better. The facilities were rustic and falling to pieces but that added to its charm. We changed in a unisex wooden hut before showering and walking along a dirt road to the cenote, which was much bigger, brighter and more fun than the underground cenote the day before. Instead of stalactites, there were roots of trees hanging 30 metres into the water. There was a makeshift wooden platform going around the perimeter and a string bridge that was impossible to get across without laughing. There were various ropes that people could swing into the water with and a zip line going from one side to the other for the more adventurous. Lifejackets weren’t compulsory so I had to work a bit in the water but it felt great, floating around amongst the tree roots. 
One irritation of Valladolid was that until the early hours every night we had to endure the incessant boom, boom, of a bass drum from a club two kilometres away. We couldn’t hear a note of music, just the bass drum, like someone was hammering on the ceiling. Youngsters had played music too loud for generations but this obsession with bass that travelled ten times further than the music it supported was new. I really didn’t understand why a few dozen people in a club should be allowed to disturb the peace of the thousands of people within a few kilometre radius.
On our last day in Valladolid, we went to an exhibition called La Casa de Los Venados. It was the private house of an American couple called John and Dorianne Venator, who had been collecting Mexican art for 50 years. The house was magnificent and not only did the owners still live in it, they used to pop out during the tours and say hello to people. Unfortunately, in the last few years, Dorianne Venator had developed dementia so she started walking around asking what all the strangers were doing in her house. She no longer made an appearance, but I did see the back of John Venator walking into a room. It was jam-packed with interesting and beautiful exhibits and I particularly liked the dining room set. 
They had created a charity for the house so that all the proceeds went to local projects and when they died, the house would be left in trust for the benefit of the community. Through all their years of collecting they only ever bought directly from Mexican artists. What an admirable couple. The house had been in ruins for many years before it was renovated and that in itself was a work of art.
For our last lunch, we went to a highly recommended authentic Mayan restaurant IX CAT IK that Federika found in the Lonely Planet book. It was beautifully designed and on our way to our table, we passed a little straw hut where a woman was sitting on the floor making tacos in the traditional Mayan method. To my delight, they were playing music that was appropriate to the restaurant. It wasn’t really music but more like the sound effects from a genuine Mayan village with the occasional flute and voices in the background. How rare it was to find an owner who actually thought about what was played over the loudspeakers.
We had no idea what we ordered for a starter as it was full of things we had never heard of, but it was excellent, with such interesting flavours. For the main course, I had some kind of prawn thing in thick cheesy chilli sauce with other things I had never heard of. Federika had a pork dish which had been cooked very slowly underground for a few hours. It wasn’t her normal choice and she was disappointed with it, but it was chosen more out of nostalgia for a dish she used to have in Peru called Pachamanca. The dessert was spectacular and despite sharing it, we still struggled to finish. It was our most enjoyable meal since arriving in Mexico but ironically, something upset my stomach which was very rare. In all our travels, including three tours of India, the last stomach upset I had was in Brazil 15 years ago. I assumed it must have been something in the cheese sauce as Federika had some of the prawns and they didn’t affect her. But even on the rare occasion that I did get a stomach upset it was no big deal and the next day I was ok.
2023 Mexico
