Heading West to Valladolid and Izamal

See Map 7
We got a nice early start on Saturday pulling out at 6:45AM with the help of Dierck who waved us up and on to the highway. It is a steep hill out the driveway with no visibility onto a high speed divided highway.
We took the fairly new road out of Tulum through Coba. It was smooth, wide and had no traffic all the way to Valladolid, it took us about two hours. We skipped stopping at the Cenote Suytun Campground and headed through Valladolid right to the prison. They make the most beautiful hammocks that we have seen anywhere. They are expensive, about $55. You could fit the whole family in there.

 

 

We were planning of spending the day in Valladolid but maybe we are getting anxious to get back to the USA. We pushed on since it was only a 2 hr drive to Izamal. Ralph & Patti, two campers we met at Xpu-Ha, told us that there is a new campground a few blocks from town at an old Hacienda called Hotel Santo Domingo. He did say the turn in their gate was tight for large rigs. But I figured my small rig could make it. It was unbelievably tight up a large bump, after much maneuvering we made it in with no more that a inch to spare. The camp is small in a goat pasture. The electricity is only 10 amp with no ground.

After setting up we walked to the Magical town. It’s one of 38 towns in MX proclaimed to have a special ambience. It’s a pretty little town with the large church built on an old Mayan pyramid in the 1500’s. The bishop there destroyed all the Mayan books but years later repented and tried to rewrite them as he remembered them.

 

Pope John Paul actually came here on his Mexico trip to make amends for the churches actions.

The Convent is next to a large Zocalo with awaiting tourist carriages. A second Pyramid can be seen a few blocks away.

 

 

We walked part way up in the 90oF heat but didn’t think it would be a very good idea to attempt to climb to the very top.

So we walked back to view the church with its large gold altar and the convent museum.

 

Couldn’t resist taking this picture of a cute little boy running by all by himself with no one in pursuit.
We sort of got lost walking back to camp so we  probably walked a mile out of our way before finding Calle 31 which took us back to camp. In this heat I estimated we must have walked 5 mi all around the pretty little yellow city. Either they got a really good buy on this paint color or it’s a popular paint color, as all the buildings near the town are painted with the same color.