Locals

Of all the ridiculous things that street vendors say in order to get your attention, this one peeves me off the most. "Hey amigo, you like this necklace? 100 pesos, 10 dollars — almost free!" It's tacky; it's insulting (to people's intelligence); and it's completely untrue. But I guess it does the job of luring in those American prey, and their almost smellable dollars.

I wasn't expecting much for Friday night in Valladolid, but it turns out that this sleepy little town knows how to party on the dance floor. Dave from NYC and I went to check out the local disco, and it ended up being a big, loud night. Music pumping. Ladies bumping. Cervezas coming.

In between our Uxmal day tour, and the Uxmal evening light show, the Uxmal road trippers went to a corrida in Santa Elena. A corrida is a kind of rodeo / country fair affair. We got some seats on the top level of some rickety stadium-ring stands, and watched a gang of Mexican cowboys and matadors have fun with a bull. Check out the video.

The 5 Uxmal road trippers stopped in Santa Elena to grab a nice, cheap, Mexican lunch. Our first try was an over-priced restaurant in the middle of town. But after a bit more in-depth searching, we managed to find a family-home-slash-little-restaurant joint that opened up especially for us, and that treated us to a massive taco feast for a very reasonable price.

I had about an hour to spare for dinner while I was in the city of Villahermosa, in between bus trips. So I went across the road from the bus terminal, to grab a taco. The way the local kids there greeted me, you'd think I was a movie star or something! I guess they don't see many tourists round here. They all wanted to sit and chat while I ate my tacos, and then they all wanted a photo with me.