How to spend $100 USD in Valladolid

Diesel doesn’t count.  Get up at dawn.  Somehow manage to get back to sleep without tossing and turning and staring at white walls.  Enjoy a lovely breakfast and cawfee.  Get stuff together for trip.  Wake sleepyheads.  Drive 2 hours to Valladolid.  Drive to Convent San Bernardino de Siena.  Brush off the small children selling mamey and asking for money.  Tour the convent with a very knowledgeable and relaxed guide who asks for $10MN per adult.  Give him $100MN after spending a good 30-45 minutes touring the convent and listening to history.  Pile in the car and head to the town center and settle in for a sumptious lunch of conchita pibil, puc choc w/refried beans and small salad, escabeche, 2 tortas (jamon con queso) with sides of refried beans and papas fritas, one order of beef steak with papas on the side, 3 salads, 3 pitchers of freshly made limonada and watermellon juice, and a coffee.  Pay $760MN which includes a $100MN tip.  Sit and enjoy a luxurious lunch while the kids swim in the restaurant pool.  Head 3 blocks to cenote and swim in the cenote or get bit by red ants.  Tough choice.  Pay $85MN entrance fee for all 7.  On the way home, get ice cream for 7 and have money left over.  You still haven’t spent your $100USD.  As a matter of fact, you have a LOT left over.

It was so lovely being back in Yucatan state.  Maybe I’m just jaded but it seems like everyone over here in QRoo has one hand out for money and the other in your back pocket.  Even the taxistas in Valladoild are tranquil.  I parked in a taxi stand and asked the driver sitting the shade on a park bench if I could just sit in the car while the family headed to the paleteria.  He was totally fine and even moved to give us room on the bench to sit.  Try that with a QRoo taxista and you’ll be missing fingers before you even put the car in park.  We had a lovely good-bye day with Papa and Tata.  I gave them the choice of Punta Allen (with a possible stop at Boca Paila again) or Valladolid and Tata really wanted Valladolid.  We’ve always enjoyed our trips there and today was no different.  The weather was perfect – breezy and warm – and the people lovely.  We’ll be terribly sad to see them off tomorrow but are so thankful for the time we had with them here.  It was a perfect trip.