Day 12: Valladolid

January 10, 2026

Yesterday's Bat Falcon was a pretty special bird for us, so we were vexed to learn that Cycleblaze had spontaneously disappeared its photo. We put it back in to yesterday. And here is a similar additional shot:

He really does look like he has his hands in his pockets, waiting for a bus!

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The cathedral is an impressive sight, especially when viewed from our door, as we head across the pool area to the breakfast tables.

We liked the breakfast here at the San Clemente a lot in past stays, finding it to be about the same price as breakfast over at the food court. But this time it was lacking just a bit. The toast came out untoasted, and without any butter or jam, for instance. And the plate looked a little bare, while the bacon would require good teeth to chew up. That's where I fell down, because mooshing rather than chewing is still all I can manage.

Our first idea for the day was to follow the street called Calzada de los Frailes, or "Walk of the Friars". This was built in the 16th century by Franciscans to connect downtown to the suburb of Sisal. In Sisal is the Convento de San Bernardino de Siena, not to mention the customary sign in large letters: Valledolid. (Of course the Franciscans lacked the sign, while still having the Convento!)

The street well illustrates the architectural style of the early Spanish period, with the two story row buildings painted in various pastels.

The street offers quite a lot of restaurants, and high quality boutiques selling local crafts.

Dodie liked these shirts, while I liked the general bright Mexican colours:

There was also one street vendor of mangos. Later we would find a street with lots of sidewalk fruit vendors. As we see it's all Atulfos in use. They taste great here, though too tangy when you find them in Canada.

The street lost a bit of its uniform design as we neared Sisal, but it was still attractive. Dodie was scrutinizing the Bougainvillea's, hoping to spot hummingbirds. She had recommended bringing the big camera, for the possibility, but I had balked about carrying it.

Of course Dodie was proved right, about the camera, because a yellow bird did turn up overhead. We made this out to be a Mangrove Vireo, snapping it with the small Canon.

Historical markers along the way (and throughout the town) help a lot with appreciation of what you are looking at:

It is also easy to spot interesting sights, just along the street:

One block ended with an original Mayan style house:

Painted detail on the doorway:

Dodie (I guess still as part of her hummingbird search) noticed this pink flowered tree:

Google lens calls this the Rosy Trumpet Tree.

We arrived at the Convent, and for the first time found it open for visits.

The visit cost was 40 pesos each. In the ticket office there was a souvenir case, with the type of stuff I often want to drag home. Dodie objects to carrying such stuff, so I began by just taking a souvenir photo. This one:

However it turned out I was able to snag the card below:

She is the Virgin of Izamal. I am really tickled to have this. It will go on that mantle that people who have been to our place know well. Meanwhile I gave it to Dodie to carry!

The visit begins with a multilingual welcome sign, with Mayan being the #2 language.

There were no direction signs for the visit, and the layout of the convent was not a standard church one. So we wandered a bit randomly, making the photos random as well. It's ok, because the visit is mainly for the atmosphere of the place. That atmosphere is what I might call rural Spanish. There is no refined guilded carving, and the architecture is of heavy blocks - like some kind of fortress out of El Cid. I'll put in captions to describe what we are looking at, when I know...

A central courtyard, effectively the cloister. The second level is reached by a single stone stairway, not easy to find. All around that level are large empty rooms.

The convent was hosting an art exhibit of photos from the major market in Merida, focusing on Mayan vendors.

This is much like at the church downtown

This place featured frescoes in addition to statues

Scenes from around the convent:

If you can read this, it really is a good story of the monastery. The photo is clear enough to read, but you need to blow it up. One thing, this does not explain the use of the word monastery, vs convent. A convent to us houses nuns, but there is also no mention of nuns in the text.

The place is built atop a large cenote, with outlets at various spots, including the kitchen. Archeology researchers, pictured here, used a cage and cables to descend to the cenote.

The steps to the level above the cloister.

Here in the garden, two unrelated trees had grown tightly together.

As we left, we passed a group that was having a get together of some sort. On their table was this traditional cake:

According to Google lens:

The image displays a box for a traditional Mexican sweet bread called Rosca de Reyes (King Cake), which is typically shared for Three Kings' Day (Día de Reyes) on January 6th. The text on the box encourages sharing these traditions.

The cake is an oval-shaped sweet bread decorated with candied fruit to represent the jewels on the Wise Men's crowns.
A small figurine of the baby Jesus is traditionally hidden inside the bread, symbolizing the flight of Jesus from King Herod.
The person who finds the figure is considered the godparent for the year and traditionally hosts a celebration on Candlemas (February 2nd).

Several vendors had set up just outside the convent. One had some local honey products. We really wished we could bring some back to show our friends the Paxmans, who have gotten into bees and who have one hive at our place. Mayan honey is a thing in Yucatan.

Just beyond the convent is the "official" Valladolid sign. From there we began to walk to the larger grocery, Soriana. This took us through typical, interesting streets. It had me remarking to Dodie that this all was way more interesting to see than our currently cold and rainy, remote farm.

There would be lots more fruits and veggies to see, out on the sidewalks.

At Soriana we saw very many products, even product types, not to be seen at home. We do of course have Coca Cola, but not in the kind of quantities shown.

Some brand names strike us as funny, like Fud - shown here - or Bimbo.

I guess Zwan is an ok name, but the rebanado (sliced) manchego cheese is totally unexciting.

The sign in the shot below seems to suggest this for Saturday BBQ. But this is more like for head cheese (animal head and other parts), which you simmer rather than broil.

Chicken legs on ice seem to come from big chickens.

Abuelita is a hot chocolate brand we know from way back. Clearly Nestle has bought it, and grandma looks a lot sexier now than we remember.

Ah, it turns out this is a famous Mexican actress, pictured in 1973. The previous lady was this:

Speaking of chocolate, it is almost non-existent here, and expensive if you find it. Carlos V is the most common, and the "bar" is more like a thin wafer. It's 18 g and costs about a dollar.

From the larger Soriana we moved back to the streets, picking up mango and oranges from the ladies on the sidewalk.

The 7 km walk in the heat was more than enough for us, and like proper tourists we retreated to our air conditioned room. Even the pool seemed to have lost its appeal, as we hung out for several hours in bed.

As the day cooled, we walked back out across the square and to the food court. We had our eye on a cochinita pibil, which is pork marinated in citrus and achiote paste and slow roasted. So it's essentially pulled pork. It is said to be the signature dish of Yucatan.

Stepping out of our room I again noticed the cathedral, but this time the dome at the back:

We continued our walk past the square and into the food court.

People in the square found non coconut ice cream - we will need to research that!

Dodie really hates it when jumped by a salesperson in a store, so the technique at the little restaurants in the food court really does not work for her. Each stall has a dedicated person to wave their menu in your face, and if you draw too near, to show you what is in each pot. I wanted Dodie to check if the cochinita was going to be to her liking, or otherwise to help check on which pot might be most chewable by my still delicate molar.

Dodie still braved the gauntlet, while sending me to the fresh orange juice lady:

I found the cochinita to be "ok". But it was kind of lukewarm, and I did not clearly detect the signature citrus and achiote. Well, the next stop was the signature ice cream.

The sign mentions flavours of native fruits from the region, and they did have coconut, vanilla, and elote (corn). But they also had Oreo, so guess what I chose! Since we just share one cup, that would make it Dodie's choice as well. I did seem to detect some push back on that.

The ice cream was excellent, through as with all food and grocery we are noticing few bargains now, just like at home. The fairly generous cup was 80 pesos -$Can 6.40.

Tonight in the square some Mayan dance performers had shown up. They use body paint well, and one was using a jaguar theme. The drumming and dance is very vigorous, and it feels like they are giving a reasonably authentic take on what this might have been like in the old days. Authentic or not, it's a good performance!

Of course even an authentic Mayan warrior today needs to check his email!

Walking back home, there was one last view of the cathedral, here with both its twin towers and the dome in the back. This has been a very fun visit to Valladolid!

Today's ride: 7 km (4 miles)
Total: 319 km (198 miles)

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