To read a previous part click here - Mexico, vacation... Sandos Caracol Eco Resort, part 5
Last time we took a look at the resort, but now let's jump back to our long day out and see what else could be found on the road from Chichen Itza and Ek Balam back to our temporary home...
Even being tired after exploring the ruins,
we were still unable to go straight to the resort ;) So first we made a stop
at the city of Valladolid.
The city
was named after Valladolid, at the time the capital of Spain. The name
derives from the Arabic expression Ballad Al-Walid بلد الوليد, which
means "city of Al-Walid", referring to Al-Walid I. The first Valladolid
in Yucatán was established by Spanish Conquistador Francisco de
Montejo's nephew on May 27, 1543 at some distance from the current town,
at a lagoon called Chouac-Ha in the municipality of Tizimin. However,
early Spanish settlers complained about the mosquitos and humidity at
the original location, and petitioned to have the city moved further
inland.
These days this is the third biggest city
on the peninsula with a population of about 45,000 people. The city
is a good example of traditional Spanish colonial architecture and
style - traditional Spanish church on the main plaza, benches and
fountains nearby and stylish buildings on the surrounding streets. Looks
exotic to us but that was pretty common all around Spanish colonies
those days.
We didn't spend much time there (an hour or two, I guess),
just walked around central square, had an ice cream, bought a couple of
bottles of drinking water in a small neighborhood store and left for the next
spot, the town of Chemax. Loot at a few more pictures of the streets of Vallodolid...
There is no
accurate data on when the town of Chemax was founded, though it existed before the
conquest as part of the province of Cupules. At colonization, Chemax
became part of the encomienda system with the first encomendero noted in
1549 as Juan López de Mena.
Yucatán declared
its independence from the Spanish Crown in 1821 and during the Caste War
of Yucatán the city was abandoned but repopulated after federal troops
regained possession of it. In 1865, the area was assigned to the
partition of Valladolid Municipality. In 1918, it was designated as its
own municipality.
Now this is a small and
sleepy town somewhere on the side of the main road between Valladolid and
Tulum. We dropped a car and just circled around the main square to see the church and some
small houses around. Later we found there are some more
interesting places to see, but we were tired and wouldn't go even if we knew... But now we have some plans for our future visit!
By
the way, we heard from friend of ours that Chemax today looks exactly like
Valladolid looked like just a couple decades ago, before endless buses
started to bring people from Cancun to Chichen Itza. So... maybe next
time we are going we find this place brighter and not as sleepy, who
knows :)
When we were leaving the town and asked
Google Maps to bring us back to the resort, it came up with the
shortest way to reach the highway. We didn't make any pictures, but take
a look to screenshot I grabbed later from the Google Maps. Yeap, that
was a narrow one and a half line badly paved road, running through the thick
jungle and for a couple of miles we felt lost in the nowhere and really
were
relieved when 10 minutes later we made a left turn to the highway and
were again surrounded by cars... It is good to be close to the nature,
but not when you are driving through the jungle in the country the
language of which you don't know ;)
To be continued...
Pictures were taken in March 2018.
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