I asked a local today, at the Ek Balam Maya ruins, "De donde es usted?" (no upside down question marks or tildes in this blog, sorry).  He responded, "Del Mundo Maya" - and I thought...huh? The Maya world? But then, I thought...why not? It's just the general area, kinda like saying, "Southern California", or even, "Orange County." Well, maybe not exactly. But kind of.

So here we are in del Mundo Maya, sitting outside on the patio of our B&B listening to the rain. Just like we listened to it yesterday. And the day before. When the plane touched down in Cancun it was pouring. Our bags were soaked. We were soaked. The Marriott Courtyard must've been soaked too, judging by the dehumidifiers spread all around the hotel (which had little affect on the humidity in our room). Apparently the rain comes fairly regularly here in July, daily at 3PM. It's actually nice that it's so predictable; helps us plan our day.

Except that before we learned the schedule of the Mayan Rain God, we got caught driving in a sudden thunderstorm yesterday. One minute dry and sunny; the next, "Crack, Boom, Splash!"

Eventually the rain stopped and we arrived at our B&B, Casa Hamaca (hammocks are in every room). The grounds are like one gigantic garden:

 

It took Erikka about a minute to stake a claim on her favorite spot in our room:

Valladolid, Yucatan, Mexico

A bit later, Trev and Rick went swimming while Erikka and I took a walk to the town center, about 10 min away. The streets are small, full of potholes, bikes, carts, dogs, and of course, a ton of water after the rain.
Valladolid is a colonial town founded in the 16th century. The location is well known for "la primera chispa de la revolución mexicana."
Chispa means, "spark." The Spaniards were invading the Mayan land and it was in Valladolid where an important (and short-lived) Mayan victory occurred.


At the town square, we watched this guy make Mexican crepes called, "Marquesitas." You could have it filled with a variety of tasty things, like Nutella or Crema de Philladelphia  :). I think they cost about 25 pesos. There's around 13 pesos to the dollar, so under $2.

Marquesitas

 Last night for dinner, we ate at probably the finest restaurant in Valladolid. It came highly recommended on Tripadvisor (my free personal world wide travel guide).  The service was amazing. We could not put down a fork without a waiter at our side. I think we had three of them just serving us. Maybe because they just have such great service...or maybe because we were the ONLY guests in the restaurant :) Whatever, it was a good thing the service was so good, because it helped make up for the food not being our favorite :( 

 

However, where else can you have grilled watermelon, tomato, and panela cheese, layered together?

Grilled Watermelon Appetizer

It looks pretty, but none of us really cared for it. The cheesecake for desert was better, though again, not quite as good as it looked. This restaurant definitely gets an A+ on Presentation.  Turns out Trevor's Neopolitan ice cream was probably the best thing we ate here!

 

Total bill - with three cocktails (GREAT mojitos!), two appetizers, four entrees, three deserts, (and three waiters) = 800 pesos ($60). Not bad.

And it came with a purse stand for my purse during dinner :) 

Today, we awoke to blue skies and not a cloud in sight. 

And yes, Erikka actually did sleep in that hammock.

 We visited the local market with Denis, the ex-pat owner (from Montana) of Casa Hamaca. This market was huge...and pretty, um...interesting. Reminded me of the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. A bit smaller, but really, not by much. And this town has 45,000 people; Tokyo has 8 million.


The market is divided into 1) produce, 2) meat, and 3) "other" (everything else) just like Tsukiji is.

Parking for the various wheeled vehicles outside the market

Valladolid Market (that's Denis, Casa Hamaca owner, in the white shirt buying our breakfast)

Notice the dog wandering around!

So, Denis explained the way it works is...farmers bring their ... um, what would you call them, carcasses? Whatever, they bring them to market early in the morning and the butchers buy them, then sell off the meat until it's gone. The meat you buy here is definitely fresh. Usually a matter of about 4 hours old. Outside the market, a row of live turkeys laid tied in the street. Ugh.

I told you it was "interesting"...


Warning (especially for you Mother)...scroll quickly here, and I'll keep the photo sizes small:

Across the street from the market, Denis took us to this wonderful little tortilleria. Their tortilla maker was fascinating to watch!!  After the tortillas are cut, they rotate around inside the oven and cook...







coming out puffy.  Looking mighty tasty...

Then they fall off the belt into a wrinkled pile. The guy stacks them into a pile. Done.
A lot longer than it probably took Rick's Granny, huh?




After the market, we headed to Ek Balam, one of the more recently excavated Maya ruins in the Yucatan. The place was awesome. One reason we liked them is that you can still climb on the ruins, whereas at places like Chichen Itza, it is not allowed. The stairs were STEEP, and the sun was HOT. We were all drenched in sweat after an hour.

After visiting Ek Balam, we went to a nearby cenote. It was either about a mile walk, or you could rent bikes (70 pesos) or hire a taxi (80 pesos). We did both, then switched on the way back.

This cenote (X'canche) was awesome!

 

You could rappel down (that's Erikka)

Or use the rope swing like Trevor is (and that's catfish in the cenote - thank God they're small)

Beautiful ride through the jungle!

Then, after exerting all that energy in the cenote, you can relax in their hammock "rest area"...too much. But seriously, I couldn't get out of that pink one there in the middle (and there's Erikka on the left - back in another hammock)

 That's it for now - more later!  Looks like we're going to switch rooms here because the rain has started to come through the air conditioner and is dripping on the floor! 

Tomorrow we may head out early to Chichen Itza. I'll report back within a couple of days with another update...Hasta luego!