Day 8: Coba to Valladolid

December 2, 2021

The toilet in our room worked fine, but every time we used it we had to consider the significance, if any, of this sign. Are they worried about a water leak, or is the concern that the toilet might not refill? The Spanish bit seems to refer to checking for no water flow. Maybe the English says the same, but the word "leak" is a bit unfortunate!

We played with the idea of following back roads to Valladolid, but it would have added 20 km to the ride, which was enough to scare us off. So we backtracked just a little and hopped back on highway 180, which is basically a straight shot to Valladolid. We started in the cool of early morning, which was a big advantage. The road was ok, but presented a challenge in that the jungle was overgrowing the shoulder. So we had the jungle on our right and traffic on our left, a good incentive to ride a straight line!

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We continued on the lookout for wildlife, and came up with this snake. It was easy to catch, as illustrated by our snake charmer, Dodie.

And even though we have snapped lots of Black Turkey vultures, this one struck a very alluring pose:

After a while the jungle receded, and we remembered that eventually we would enter ranching country, where presumably the jungle is replaced by pastures. Less jungle made the riding easier, and eventually we even got a shoulder with dotted line. What luxury!

On the stretch with the dotted shoulder the trees by the roadside had been cleared for quite a few meters back. The work had left many trunks and branches lying about, and we now encountered local people taking advantage of the bounty for firewood. The only thing, except for one guy with a chainsaw and truck, they were hacking at branches with machetes and carrying the wood away with cargo bikes. That is really hard work. Pictured below is one lady hard at it, while her husband waits with the kids at the bike. At least in this case it was a motorized bike, most were not.

This theme of impossibly hard work out in the sun was also seen with the two fellows below, hacking the brush back with machete. (In the photo it does seem like the second worker is attacking with a cell phone.) The scene caused me to speculate on why they did not use one of those tractor mounted brush cutters. Well ok, they had that too!

One of the features of this ride was that there was not a single darn thing on it in terms of refreshments, rest stops, or even much shade. As the sun rose higher, I kept adding sun screen to my left leg (the exposed side) I could feel it actively fricasseeing in place.

We reached Tikuch, which does have refreshments and such, but for some reason did not think to stop. Valladolid was not that much further on. Here are a few images of Tikuch:

We love these bikes, which often have Mrs. seated in front on a plastic chair, while Mr. pedals along.

As it turned out, this was my day to wilt in the sun. We entered the outskirts of Valladolid, which has rough roads and traffic buzzing around everywhere. Especially buzzy were the motorbikes, which seemed to be coming in great numbers from all directions. I kept gamely pedaling, but I knew I was not well.

Fortunately Dodie was on her game and we followed a direct line to the hotel, which is on the main square, in the shadow of the cathedral. Dodie went in to make the room arrangements - which is normal for us anyway - but I was glad of it because I was done.

When we got in to the room, I put a towel on the bed to keep it from getting wet, and lay down on it. My clothes and skin were soaked with sweat.

After half an hour on the bed, I recovered enough for us to go into the pool. Fifteen minutes in the pool, and I was recovered enough to go out to see and enjoy Valladolid!

Valladolid has a chequered history. What we see today is the result of the Spanish tearing down a Mayan city and building their own town, from which the Mayans were largely excluded. When the Mayans revolted in 1847, the city was a major flash point. But the Mayans got clobbered by the Spanish, and neither did they do well after Mexican independence.

Today we see here some well preserved/restored Spanish colonial structures, and the city has transformed into quite a centre of the arts and crafts. Downtown is stuffed with galleries and craft stores.

We began by checking out the cathedral, the church of Saint Servatius, which dates from 1706, when a structure from 1545 was replaced:

The cathedral is right outside our door, as is the main square.

We set ourselves only two objectives for walking in the town. The first was to go to and along the "Street of the Friars" (Calz de los Frailes), which is said to have the best colonial building examples, and which ends at the 1552 Convent of San Bernardino de Siena.

The houses look rather small, but the facades hide large courtyards.

The street also has one preserved Mayan house:

Our second walking objective was cenote Zaci, which is right in the middle of the city. We got there to find it is surrounded by a wall, with a restaurant within that limits access to customers. The guidebooks did not mention that! No matter, it's hard to hide a whole giant cenote:

That's 7 km of walking today!

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Our quest for the day ended with ... Poc Chuc! We spotted many restaurants offering Poc Chuc, but chose one right by the hotel. Strangely though many tour busses were disgorging hoards of people nearby, the restaurant was not crowded and mostly had locals at the tables. The tour bus people must not have time in their schedules for this.

Our Poc Chuc again had excellent flavour in the meat, but some other deficiencies. All the elements were indeed there, including this time the refried beans and pickled onions, but the bean consistency was too liquid, as was the salsa, which was more like a tomato sauce. Beans and salsa did have good flavour, though.

We have decided to search out the restaurant in Merida said to have invented Poc Chuc, but may just expand our diet a bit until then, if only to Pibil Cochinita, Sopa de Lima, or Fajitas.

Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 290 km (180 miles)

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