Izamal

On the 4th day of our Yucatan travels, we took the 2nd class bus to Izamal.  As with our trip to Celestun, we were able to see a bunch of small towns that we miss with the 1st class bus. 

Izamal’s claim to fame is its HUGE convent built in the 1500’s.  It is run by Franciscan monks who still wear the brown wool robes – yikes, that’s hot on 90 degree days!

The inside of the church is very plain except for the altar and a few stained glass windows.

The murals just inside an entrance we used looked really old – like from the 1500’s maybe?  So rather than hastening their demise with our flash, we used this photo from Google Images.

The courtyard in front of the church has 75 arches and encloses an area of over 24,000 square feet.  

Peggy doesn’t often feel vertically challenged but she did here!

The front of the convent is painted gold like most of the buildings in Izamal.  In the back the rock work is exposed.  Ed is thinking a few flying buttresses may be in his future in Cedaredge.

On friends’ recommendations, we stayed at Mecan Che, a jungle oasis in town.  They had large vegetable gardens, huge trees, beautiful flowers and a refreshing pool that looked like a cenote.

After having a beautiful breakfast (can’t believe we didn’t take a picture of our fruit plates that displayed one perfect slice each of pineapple, watermelon, mango, and papaya!), we walked to some pyramids that are right in the town of Izamal.  At the top, we could see mounds (pyramids?) in the distance.

After Peggy had a quick dip in the pool, we walked a few blocks to one of the 2nd class bus stations.  Below is a photo of the station – the man on the right was working on an ancient monochrome computer with a dot matrix printer.  The men’s bathroom apparently was the grass in a courtyard behind the building!

We took another nice bus making many stops to Valladolid where we got on a 1st class bus to Playa Del Carmen and then the ferry home.  Another mini European tour!  We loved it and look forward to the next one.  What will it be?  A convent tour, a ruins tour, a hacienda tour, a cenote tour, a caves tour?  So many choices.