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Day
11 (March 14, 2014) Valladolid
Before
Our last day in Yucatan Peninsula will start in
Valladolid, which we’ll worth a short visit. Then, we could visit Ek
Balam, after a 20 minutes’ drive from the city.
The important for us is to be at Cancun airport on time for delivering
the car and board into our flight to Miami at 4:55 PM.
At 8 PM we would reach the American city, where we only will have time
for dinner and spending the night in our hotel in Miami Beach.
The spots marked at map are:
A- Hotel
Meson
del Marques in Valladolid
B- Cancun airport
C- Ek Balam
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After
This is a relaxing day as the only we really need
to do is being at Cancun airport at one point between the midday and 3
PM, so no rushes for waking up and breakfast. Hotel is quiet at this
time of the morning.
 
We finally go out for a walk around Valladolid city center
around 8:15 AM, starting by the square in front of the hotel, which is
the most centric point of this city.
 
It is beautiful, with more space than the one in Antigua. We
walk through the park and pass by the fountain to reach the Cathedral,
just across the square.
 
Then we cross the wide road to getting in and
exploring the austere external walls of this building walking all
around it.
 
In 15 minutes we’re done with the square and take one of the
streets to explore the surroundings. My wife has read about the shoe
maker tradition for this city and is looking at every shoe shop looking
for something to buy cheap.
 
At 9:15 AM we’re back in the hotel to follow our simple plan:
checking out from hotel and taking the main road with the car, which is
just here.
 
The center of Valladolid is worth to be visited.
The colonial style is clear and we can easily compare it with Antigua,
with the low and colorful façades. The difference here is coming by the
taller buildings and the paved streets, with cars going and coming
permanently.
 
I’m driving by this eternal straight road through the jungle
which passes by a village once a while, always after some speed bumps.
After three hours we reach the point we should change to the road going
down to the airport.
Somehow, there is no sign to the airport in the road and we can clearly
see in the GPS we’re getting further from that point. My solution is
turning around and, following the map in the GPS, taking an exit
labeled as going to Valladolid and Merida.
When
we’re on it we can see is the one where we can take the way to the
airport from, but only from the other direction. We freak out when the
signs in our road only point to exits in Valladolid or further, after
some 180 Kms. This is a sort of direct highway with the highest speed
limit we’ve seen in the country: 110 Km/h. We should take this one from
Valladolid in the first place. I keep looking at the vegetation at my
left for a hole that allows me to change to the other direction as no
way of doing all those kilometers going and again when coming back.
Finally, a third lane opens at left for a few meters as if it was a
resting area and, when I go to there, I can find a narrow pass to the
road at our left, the desired one. With no second thoughts, I take it
and get the right direction and finally solve our arrival to Cancun
airport.
So we reach the
airport around 12:30 PM, after four hours driving from Valladolid. As
the people who must take the car are not still here I leave it in the
parking and keep the ticket carefully.
After some calls they appear around 1 PM. Luck for us we are in no
rush. I pay some extra pesos for the parking and the extra fuel spent
by me and I take my cash deposit in US dollars, which I think to use in
Miami.
Once free of our baggage and after the
security control, we choose a Domino’s pizza place for our lunch. We’re
in a large hall with some restaurants and big gift stores, between all
the boarding gates at walls. We must take one of them to board into our
flight, which leaves around 5 PM as scheduled.
The
immigration tasks in Miami airport are fast because there are a lot of
officers attending the long line and, at 8:30 PM, we’re taking a taxi
to Miami Beach. There is a fix rate for this: 32$ (USD since this
point).
 
We’re delivered at our hotel in North Beach, the
Baltic Hotel, where we check in and go out for a walk to a supermarket
two blocks down Collins Avenue, where we get some snacks we enjoy while
watching a movie in Spanish in our room’s tv.
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