A Canadian writer's life: Taberna de los Frailes

Friday, February 27, 2015

A road trip to our favourite places, Valladolid and Izamal Mexico

“I wonder if Sylvia knows where we are?” I joked as we turned down yet another tiny, unmarked street in the colonial town of Izamal.

I was referring to John's iPhone GPS. We were looking for the route back to Highway #185 and Valladolid.

Franciscan monastery in Izamal

About a three-hour drive from Cancun, Izamal is one of our favourite places in the Yucatan Peninsula to take visitors. Settled in the 1540s by the Spanish, the city and the Franciscan monastery were built directly on top of an old Mayan temple. The monastery and many of the buildings in Centro have traditionally been painted a mellow egg-yolk gold. Even though the reason for the monochromatic hue has been lost over the decades, the golden colour gives a lively, vibrant look to photographs.

Our favourite Kinich Restaurante

Lawrie and I typically travel with maps, but since we have been to Izamal a few times in past years, we thought we knew where we were going, and he normally has a fine-tuned sense of direction. However, when driving on roads that wind through cramped, narrow streets on flat, featureless land, the topography looks the same all the time. Full from a spectacular lunch at our favourite eatery in Izamal, the Kinich Restaurante, we were a bit drowsy and probably missed the rare and sun-faded directional signs. So, John and his iPhone came to our rescue!

Stained glass window, Izamal

When asked, Sylvia, the iPhone politely informed us we were headed in the wrong direction. She then dispensed step-by-step instructions for multiple turns onto tiny one-way roads, including exactly how many meters before our next turn onto yet another dust-covered alley, wending our way to the intersection of the highway.

I take back every sarcastic comment I have ever made about people relying on GPS! Sylvia, the iPhone is a very knowledgeable lady.

Valladolid in the evening

Getting into the centre of Valladolid was easy; we had been there many times and we had good instructions – the pen and paper kind – for finding our hotel. The Casa Tia Micha is a tiny B&B a few steps off the square. With a total of three guest rooms available is probably the tiniest hotel that we have ever booked. The front entrance is quite plain, with a black metal gate opening up to a delightful entrance and courtyard. The B&B is beautifully decorated with great attention to detail; comfy beds, good showers, a complimentary bottle of wine and two nice wine glasses. Just perfect!

Our room at Casa Tia Miche, Valladolid

In the morning, co-owner Rosanelly Ayora Sosa treated us to a tasty three-course breakfast of regional dishes, a great start for our day of roaming the Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá. Settled in around 600 CE and abandoned in the late 1500s, Chichén Itzá was rediscovered by European explorers in 1842. The entire complex was buried under an accumulation of trees, vines, and other assorted vegetation that had grown unchecked. By 1923, the Mexican government was interested in excavating the main parts of the city. Excavation projects are ongoing at the site as more structures have been located, some buried underground, some deep in the jungle.

Our travel partners - Maia and John at Chichén Itzá

We arrived at the complex around 9:30 in the morning. We had three hours of relative peace - to take photos, read information plaques, cruise past the hundreds of vendors and leave before the dozens of tour buses from Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Mérida disgorged their sunbaked passengers.

Taberna de Los Frailes Valladolid

Turning back to Valladolid, we headed to our other favourite restaurant, the Taberna de Los Frailes, for a late lunch. Serving tasty regional specialties, the Taberna is a great place to relax and enjoy time with family and friends. The eatery is located in a sub-district of Valladolid called Sisal, beside the Convento of San Bernardino de Siena. The Convento (monastery) was built between 1552 to 1560 by the Franciscan monks and was in use until 1755, when it was abandoned. A self-guided tour of the property is a good way to walk off a few lunch calories.

San Bernardino de Siena

Early the following morning, we enjoyed our last tasty breakfast before setting off on our return trip to Isla Mujeres. We decided to drive the “libre” road, the toll-free, slower route, and more interesting than a four-lane, dead-straight, nothing-to-see route.

TriciTaxis - Leona Vicario

We bumped our way over the topes (speed bumps) of each small village, passing plant nurseries, handicraft stands and small restaurants. In Leona Vicario, we were surprised to see motorcycle-based TriciTaxis, buzzing around, carrying students to and from school, shoppers, supplies – anything. Cool idea!

Casa Tia Miche, Valladolid

And then finally we were headed home on the car ferry, content, tired, and ready to chill out for a few days in our island paradise.

We love road trips! And we really love getting back to our home.

Hasta Luego

Lynda, Lawrie, Sparky, and Thomas the Cat

Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

Death in the Vineyards Mysteries

The Adventures of Thomas and Sparky

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Valladolid Mexico: the colourful "sultaness of the east"

Cathedral Valladolid, undergoing restoration.

It is always great fun to see our world through the eyes of our friends. Last spring, we took a road trip to another of our favourite colonial cities, Valladolid, located on the eastern side of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

We left Isla Mujeres on the 9:30 a.m. car ferry, as we couldn’t see the point of dragging everyone out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to catch the earlier boat. I was up early anyway, in excited anticipation of a road trip; a Christmas-morning-can’t-wait-to-rip-open-the-packages feeling. The drive to Valladolid is always a long, boring trip on an almost dead straight road through a dense jungle of trees just tall enough to block your view.

The road has one well-marked but very gentle S-curve and one tollbooth stop. Other than that, if we had had an autopilot system, we all could have tucked pillows behind our heads and snoozed for a couple of hours.

Valladolid Centro Public Park

By North American standards, Valladolid is a very old and beautiful colonial city. The city was originally established on a lagoon a few miles away, but the early Spanish settlers complained about the mosquitoes and petitioned to have the city moved further inland in the mid-1500s. I can sympathize with them. I hate mosquitoes! The City of Valladolid has undergone a major facelift in the last year or two, with a repaint of all of the city square businesses and homes in shades of pale pink, soft green, sherbet orange, glowing amber and glistening white. The cathedral and city square park are also being refurbished. It’s a visual feast for the eyes.

Our favourite restaurante in Valladolid

We arrived in Valladolid shortly after 12:30 p.m., and drove on a meandering route through the city, trying to remember the way on their narrow one-way-only streets to the Taberna de Los Frailes (The Friar’s Tavern).

About the time our friends became convinced that we didn’t have a clue as to where we were going, and they were surely going to starve to death, or die of dehydration locked inside the car, we found it! Well darn. The restaurant was closed. I glanced at my wrist watch and realized it was only 12:45, and the lunch hour had not yet started. I popped around the corner to the outside patio, where a waiter was setting up for the day and asked him in my really bad Spanglish what time they were due to open. Twenty minutes –perfect.

Convent of San Bernardino de Siena

Across the street from the Taberna de Los Frailes is a large structure that had been the Convent of San Bernardino de Siena. We decided to walk around it and take a few photos while we waited for the restaurant to open. Much to our delight, we discovered it was open and available for self-guided tours for a small entry fee of 30.00 pesos (about $3.00 CDN).

Built from 1552 to 1560 by the Franciscan monks, the Convento (actually a monastery) of San Bernardino de Siena was in use until 1755, when it was abandoned. At some point in time, an effort was made to restore the building as much as possible and to use it as a church, meeting hall, and community gathering place. The soft peach-pink tones of the ancient sandstone exterior have been accentuated by the lovely pink colour of the interior plaster.

One of my favourite photos, inside monastery

To the locals, this imposing cathedral is called “Sisal,” the ancient name for their small town. Part of the building was erected over the vault of a very large cenote, an underground water-filled cavern that was created millions of years ago in the soft sandstone by rainwater.

The monastery was created to be self-sustaining with huge orchards, vegetable gardens and fresh water from the cenote. (No mention was made of whether or not the monks operated a distillery on the property, strictly for medicinal purposes, of course. Maybe Tequila? Or a Tequila-brandy?)

After wandering through the monastery, we enjoyed a wonderfully tasty lunch and a glass of wine at the Taberna de Los Frailes.

I then dragged my friends into my favourite store in the centre of Valladolid. Yalat is a wonderful store, with hand-made linens from various areas in Mexico. Expensive! But fabulous.