Its the weekend. And its hot. It's very, very hot. And we are lazy. So, despite it being our only weekend in Valladolid, our activity level is not particularly high. The plan had originally been to take our trip to Chichen Itzá on Saturday, but the combination of our trip through Mayapan and fairly universal warnings about how crowded and touristy Chichen Itzá has become changed our minds.
Instead of Chichen Itzá, we did some walking around town on Saturday into a few different neighborhoods, mostly we had to walk to get our re-entry COVID-19 test scheduled and that place is about a half hours walk from the house. There was all road construction, so we had to make a couple detours. We went to the market on the way. Unfortunately by the time we got to the market, it was mostly closed. Some of the artesania at the market seems to be inferior quality and in the ballkpark price wise when compared to some of the swankier shops on our swanky Calzados de los Frailes street.
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| From right to left: Wall (its a fancy Italian restaurant), sidewalk, gutter street. Francine is standing on the sidewalk. |
Speaking of our swanky little street, lest you think I was overstating the narrowness of the sidewalks, here is a picture, complete with (Francine's) legs to give you perspective. At least here, in this part of town, they're all level and flat (meaning no holes and no big steps).
Speaking of our swanky little street, on Saturday night, we went to a beautiful historical sound and light show that is projected off the 16th century convent at the end of the street. Quite nice, first in Spanish and then again in English. The light show was preceded by a street snack (esquites, which were very good) and followed by another street snack, a marquesita.
We finally made it to the laboratory to schedule a test. We scheduled it and walked back home. I normally don't have trouble with heat, but even I was having a little trouble today. The weather service on my phone confirmed that it was hot. As soon as we got back home, I realized that besides the flight home and the bus ride to Cancún, I had only one other thing scheduled for the week and I had managed to schedule the Covid Tests in the same time slot. So, we walked back to the laboratory on Sunday to re-schedule. Oops.
We learned on Sunday that on Monday, Yucatán was headed back to Covid Yellow from Covid Orange. It had been Yellow when we planned the trip and was headed toward green. Most of the country was green the week or two before we came. Yucatán was yellow and flipped to Orange just before we arrived....shutting down all the nightlife. This has made for a little bit of a more mellow trip. Well, we'll see what heading back to Yellow means tomorrow. On a side note, when I went to look at the map, I couldn't help but notice that most of the Mexican green was gone, replaced with orange and yellow, but more notably there was one red state, which there hadn't been prior.
We went to church on Sunday. First time in a month, which is very unusual for me. We were 15 minutes late due to multiple websites giving mass time - most of them being wrong. It was very nice and the sermon actually kinda came real close to being a little counter-cultural for a Roman Catholic priest.
After mass, we tried to head to the same Italian Pub for fish and chips only to find that it had been shut down by the government for non-compliance with something having to do with health. I think it was corona testing. You have to be invited into most public places. First, they take your temperature with a little laser-beam thing, and then they squirt alcohol gel into your hand. There is also a little tray with water and towel for you to rinse off the bottom of your shoes, but I don't think that's corona-related; I think that's dust-related. You must be wearing a mask, even just walking on the street.
And so end days thirty-three and thirty-four.
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