Valladolid Market and Amazing Tulum!!

/ Ed Armstrong
Sadly, today is our last day to see the sites in Yucatan. Our goal was to see the amazing ruins in Tulum, but we first visited the local market in Valladolid.

I absolutely love all the bright colors of vegetables available in Yucatan. I do not think I have ever seen radishes so huge!!

Everywhere you look in the Valladolid market, there a beautiful foods to eat!!

This trip has taught me that habanero chilis are extremely hot!! I can only use a small amount on my foods.

These friendly people were proud of the high quality of their produce!

I liked all the bottles of items from vanilla to honey!!

These small bananas were extremely flavorful!! We bought enough for everyone to have one while we drove to Tulum!!

I absolutely loved all these bottles of miel (honey)!!

I wanted to sample all these items!! From garlic to rice to beans!!

This cacao is where chocolate is made. Our guide knew the owner and she gave us samples to try!!

It is not every day that you see a beef head!! You can buy anything at this market!!

I loved all the cheerful colors on the shoes for sale!!

Next, we drove for quite a while to get to the Caribbean coast to the famous city of Tulum!!

The Tulum ruins are an entire city of Mayan ruins. We walked through various sites to see all kinds of buildings. It was also fun to see the tropical setting of Tulum!!

There were many Mayan structures that our guide showed to us!!

This building was used to demonstrate the unique door jamb and lintel framework the Mayans used in Tulum.

The beach is part of Tulum and the water is the Caribbean Sea!! There is a break in the large reef that would allow ships to come to this beach.

I was amazed at the complexity of all the different buildings in Tulum!!

The presence of all the palm trees was so different from the other Mayan ruin sites we have visited!!

This is the highest structure in Tulum and the Spaniards were able to see this building when they were sailing in the Caribbean Sea. The building is called “the castle.”

I especially liked this house!! Someone wealthy must have lived here.

We just kept walking from one impressive building to another! Tulum is huge!!

As we walked through the ruins, we kept encountering many iguanas! This male was massive!! He carefully watched us as we walked by.

I thought this was absolutely hilarious! I never expected to see the tail of an iguana sticking out of a hole in a Mayan wall!!

This is another view of “the castle.” I thought is was absolutely amazing!!

The corner view of this mask took up the whole corner and is one of the best preserved masks in the Mayan ruins. You can see the person’s chin and mouth on the bottom. Above it is the nose and eyes.

Tulum has an absolutely spectacular view of the beautiful color of the Caribbean Sea!!

This iguana seemed especially interested in watching us!!

I loved seeing the combination of the palm trees, some of the Tulum structures, and the gorgeous color of the Caribbean Sea!!