In the morning in Valladolid, we went to eat breakfast at the same place we had dessert. It wasn't that great and we wondered why we had come back...maybe expecting a better experience in the morning. It was a surprise when Juan's chilaquiles with turkey instead of eggs. We headed over to the Casa de los Venados after breakfast and the owner of the house showed us around as well as three Australian people. The house itself was impressive and the art pieces were amazing. It was absolutely beautiful.
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| In the foyer at La Casa de los Venados. |
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| The foyer at the La Casa de los Venados. Frida and Diego bench = so cool!!! |
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| John, the owner of the house and our guide. He's explaining this mural that he and his wife contracted to a Mexican artist. |
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| Okay, can you imagine creating this amazing piece of art with your hands? Now imagine doing it blind-folded. The artist is blind!!! Absolutely amazing!!! |
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| Their beautiful pool, gorgeous bridge, and art pouring water from high up on the walls into the pool. This bridge and pool setup has been used in model photo shoots. |
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| The dining table. The woman next to this priest was one of Diego Rivera's lovers as well as an actress. John said as a penance he sat Diego furthest away from her on the other side of the table, next to the nun you can see poking out over the bowl in the middle of the table. |
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| Even the bathroom is art!!! |
After the tour, we asked the owner, John, how to get to the exconvento San Bernardino de Siena and he told us the directions and that the Taberna de los Frailes was an excellent place to eat near to the exconvento.
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| Outside of the exconvento San Bernardino de Siena. |
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| One of the cenotes on the grounds of San Bernardino de Siena. |
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| The landscape was beautiful at the exconvento. |
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| Inside the church at San Bernardino de Siena exconvento. |
San Bernardino de Siena was on beautiful grounds, but I think I liked the Taberna de los Frailes better. I was expecting to see more artwork at the ex-convent. We ate a lot of good food that looked like art at the Taberna.
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| Yummy salad at the Taberna de los Frailes. |
After lunch we found a taxi to take us to the X'keken cenote for relatively cheap. We paid a bit more and he waited for us an hour while we swam. Cenotes are realy cool. They're freshwater pools in caves. You walk down into the cave and there's a hole in the top letting in sunlight. The water's clear and there were black fish everywhere. There were also bats on the ceiling of the cave. Juan was a bit nervous that the pool was so deep in the middle, so we rented him a life jacket. They had ropes spanning out to the extremities in three or four places. We touched the stalactites and the roots hanging down from trees growing above. I hit my toe on a rock because it was hard to tell how deep the rocks were. When I got out I also slipped on some wet rocks, butt thankfully I landed on my butt. The taxi driver had gauze and alcohol to put on my toe, since it had started to bleed when we got out of the water. He was really nice. We left after I changed out of my swimsuit and he took us to our hotel. We got our bags, got an ice cream at the store next to the hotel and then went to the bus station to go to Merida.
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| Going down to the X'Keken cenote. |
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| The X'Keken cenote. |
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| Swimming in the cenote. |
Once we got to Merida, we got a taxi to go to the hotel I'd found online. I was looking forward to this hotel, but seeing as it was Friday, it was all booked up. We went to the Hotel San Juan next door instead. After showering, we went to the Chaya Maya restaurant that the taxi driver had recommended. We got crema de chaya soup, an entrada of papaxules and an entree called the 4 Yuccas. It was four types of the Yucatan's typical meat dishes: cochinita pibil, relleno negro, pepian de pavo, and pikul de pavo. They had women making fresh tortillas to the back of the restaurant and they served them in jicara gourds. The food was excellent but we were so full afterward. We walked around and looked in some shops before going to the Nieveria Colon. It had been recommended to us by our tour guide in Chichen Itza and Juan had also heard of it. I got sorbette de nance and Juan got sorbette de mamey. Both nance and mamey are regional fruits. They were really good and refreshing. At the hotel unfortunately we passed a brutal night because we thought the A/C was broken. It was suffocatingly hot and humid, but we survived.
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| Cuatro Yuccas entree at the Chaya Maya in Merida. |
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| The cathedral in the plaza in Merida. |
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