Bacalar to Valladolid

We left Hotel Lacuna and Lake Bacalar headed north to Valladolid. It was a fairly unremarkable drive. The highway before Felipe Carrillo Puerto (a small town) was a really good divided highway. We stopped once for coffee and restroom at this place

It was basically a snack shack but they had coffee (instant, of course) and restrooms. Word up to people who don't know: a lot of small public restrooms like this throughout Mexico and Central America do not have toilet seats. Now, I do not sit on public toilet seats anyway, but if you are unfamiliar with the lack of
toilet seats that may come as a surprise. They also had a couple of young coatimundis for pets.Coatimundis are similar to raccoons with longer tails. They DO NOT make good pets (just like raccoons). In Belize, it is illegal to keep these as pets, but people still do it. Here is a pic of one up near the palapa roof

After Felippe Carrillo Puerto the road turned into an undivided highway that was pretty desolate with the exception of small villages occasionally featuring mainly traditional thatch houses like this

There were obviously a lot of people living off in the bush also because we saw men on those 3-wheeled bicycles with the carts on the front gathering firewood way off in between villages. Cooking with firewood is common here (as it is in many parts of Belize).
We arrived in Valladolid, a charming colonial town of about 50,000 people. It features a nice central park and other green spaces. We stayed at El Meson del Marques--a lovely hotel right on the square. Here is Phil cheesin' in our room

And a picture of the pool courtyard that our room was right beside

That evening we walked around the square and checked out fhe shops along the streets near our hotel. There were a lot of tour buses in town at one point which made things a bit hectic--people getting ready for the "end of the world" on the 21st. The local dance company put on a really neat show in the park that was a recreation of a Maya ceremony and they explained what the primary gods (represented by the dancers) were. This was all in Spanish, but fortunately I understand enough to follow along. Here is a pic of the drummers and dancers together.

Here are some close ups of the dancers and drummers

This guy was my favourite-

the one with the big headdress^  I wish the pics had been better but it was kind of dark there.
I will close this blog post with a pic of how they deliver Domino's Pizza here