Yucatan, Mexico

I am spending the last of my Mexican days in a small colonial town of Yucatan - Volladolid. What a change from needless to mention Cancun Merida. The center is compact, lined up with colourful freshly painted colonial houses. It is absolutely not touristy, counting six gift stores and one coffee shop. Other stores, holes in the wall, sell either shoes, clothing, bread or housewares. Women are dressed in Yucatan white traditional dresses, men wear sombreros and eat tortas de cochinita (meltingly tender pork on a roll) from the corner street carts (delicious!). And there is absolutely nothing to do here! I agree with the Spaniards, the only complain for Valladolid is mosquitoes.

On this trip I have been blessed with awesome random travel buddies. Together with Stefan we have explored Cancun's Zona Hotelera, and we hit all the "cheesy" spots - an overpriced warm beer on the beach at the fancy ME hotel, exploring ME later (was seriously considering couch surfing inside, it was so nice), overpriced and bad Tex-Mex lunch with a bucket of ice cold Coronas and 2 hours of Michael Jackson concert in the background, more hotel hopping, beach wedding, and back to Cancun town where cheap tacos were on order.

Next stop was Isla Mujeres with its beautiful [quite crowded compared to Cancun] Playa Norte. The water colour was blue! No, I mean, it was so blue, shockingly blue. I was introduced to tomales, and of course more tacos. Second day on the island was stormy, so instead of going to Contoy Island, the sanctuary for thousand species of bird, I was left to get drunk on Mexican red wine with my fellow backpackers at Poc Na hostel. Not a bad way to spend a day too!

Merida, the capital of Yucatan, was next. Four Scots and me made a hell of a group! We explored Mayan ruins of Uxmal one day and Cozuma Cenotes (Waterholes) another one. I have never heard of cenotes before, but OMG they were amazing. Completely see-trough blue waters in the underground caves were lit by the sunlight coming through a small opening on the top, lighting up the caves' pinkish walls. Two out of three visited cenotes had long tree roots hanging from the ceiling or stalastices growing from the top. But pictures speak better than words:

Finally, I visited Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza with clapping Cancun tourist groups on the way to Valladolid.
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I love travelling in Mexico. Second time around and I still love it. It is a beautiful and diverse country with friendly people, easy to navigate and good infrastructure, great food & crafts, history and nature.

I bring very few souvenirs back:

- a colourful hand made hammock from Merida, a place to shop for traditional Yucatecan hammocks - 1 week worth of work costs 280 pesos (medium size)
- simple silver earrings (Valladolid, 136 pesos) - shopping for silver in Oaxaca was definitely cheaper and better
- mexican re-usable shopping bag (Valladolid, 18 pesos)
- Frog necklace (Valladolid, 30 pesos). According to the Mayan calender, I am a frog (or 'muuch'), born between July 12 and August 08, still a fire sign under the planet of Sun, but cold blooded, analytical and calm. The last characteristic just revealed the horoscope's absurdity :)
- Olmec warrior head, a fridge magnet, for my little brother (Valladolid, 35 pesos)

[souvenir from Oaxaca can be seen here]
Kindly yours,
Muuch