{"id":5127,"date":"2012-09-30T16:49:09","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T22:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/temp-blog\/?p=5127"},"modified":"2017-08-28T16:42:57","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T21:42:57","slug":"yucatan-road-trip-enjoying-the-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/yucatan-road-trip-enjoying-the-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Yucatan Road Trip &#8211; Enjoying the Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Right now, I&#8217;m enjoying a little stay here in\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/merida-real-estate\" target=\"_blank\">Merida<\/a> with my family &#8211; absolutely beautiful colonial city!\u00c2\u00a0 But one of the parts I always enjoy about my trips to Merida is the drive itself.\u00c2\u00a0 A road trip is one of the many fun excursions that Americans and Canadians can enjoy in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/lets-retire-in-mexico\/\">Mexico retirement<\/a>; I&#8217;m not retired yet, but I can definitely say I&#8217;ll be enjoying road trips like this one even more often when I am!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px none;\" title=\"Mayan Countryside\" src=\"http:\/\/i255.photobucket.com\/albums\/hh138\/beatlo\/Coba%20Pyramids\/YucatanTrip.jpg\" alt=\"Coba Pyramids\" width=\"464\" height=\"618\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s along the drive from Playa del Carmen to Merida?\u00c2\u00a0 After heading south to Tulum, and turning off on the highway that heads north-west towards the State of Yucatan, the first point of interest is Coba, a beautiful and huge site of Mayan pyramid ruins, which is actually still within the State of Quintana Roo (where Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum are located.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px none;\" title=\"Coba Pyramids\" src=\"http:\/\/i255.photobucket.com\/albums\/hh138\/beatlo\/Coba%20Pyramids\/SL276747.jpg\" alt=\"Merida Road Trip\" width=\"464\" height=\"619\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(OK, OK, I know I&#8217;m not the best photographer. Let&#8217;s try this shot from Wikipedia instead:)<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 465px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Coba Pyramid\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/3\/34\/Cob%C3%A1%2C_Nohoch_Mul_Pyramide.jpg\/220px-Cob%C3%A1%2C_Nohoch_Mul_Pyramide.jpg\" alt=\"Merida Road Trip\" width=\"465\" height=\"699\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Thanks Wikipedia!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Besides the pyramids, Coba also has little highway-side markets where people sell handicrafts, mostly blankets, hammocks, bags and other items made in a similar weaving technique.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, at one point along the way there is a prison where the prisoners&#8217; handicrafts and artwork are sold outside of the prison at the highway side.\u00c2\u00a0 (In many Mexican prisons, inmates are expected to cover many of their own expenses; the handicrafts give them an income to cover these expenses and a constructive activity to spend their time on.)\u00c2\u00a0 This prison is especially famous for its hammocks.\u00c2\u00a0 We didn&#8217;t get a chance to stop here this time, but it&#8217;s generally one of the best places to stop for this kind of stuff (best selection, best quality, very good prices, etc.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px none;\" title=\"Handicrafts in the Mayan Countryside\" src=\"http:\/\/i255.photobucket.com\/albums\/hh138\/beatlo\/hammocks\/Yucatan.jpg\" alt=\"Hammocks near Coba\" width=\"464\" height=\"347\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Once you actually enter the state of Yucatan, there are numerous Mayan villages along the highway, and a few colonial towns.\u00c2\u00a0 The largest and best known of these is the very quaint colonial town of Valladolid.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Vallodolid Town Center &amp; Church\" src=\"\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/5\/56\/Iglesia_de_San_Servacio.jpg\" alt=\"Iglesia de San Servacio\" width=\"464\" height=\"311\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This time we hurried more than we usually do, but the road drive to Merida could be a very relaxing full day (or even more) for anyone who loves seeing pyramids, Mayan villages, colonial towns, handicrafts and beautiful, beautiful countryside.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>TOPMexicoRealEstate.com; Mexico&#8217;s Leading Network of Specialists for Finding and Purchasing Mexican Properties Safely<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/real-estate-videos\/?video=V229&amp;art=4142&amp;web=Blog \" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/i255.photobucket.com\/albums\/hh138\/beatlo\/Banners\/LivinPlaya-1.jpg\" alt=\"Livin' Playa video interview\" width=\"300\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Right now, I&#8217;m enjoying a little stay here in\u00c2\u00a0Merida with my family &#8211; absolutely beautiful colonial city!\u00c2\u00a0 But one of the parts I always enjoy about my trips to Merida is the drive itself.\u00c2\u00a0 A road trip is one of the many fun excursions that Americans and Canadians can enjoy in a Mexico retirement; I&#8217;m [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1858,135,199,886,402],"tags":[1532,423,869],"class_list":{"0":"post-5127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-living-and-retirement","7":"category-living-in-mexico","8":"category-merida-real-estate","9":"category-mexico-travel-living-in-mexico","10":"category-yucatan-real-estate","11":"tag-living-in-mexico","12":"tag-living-in-yucatan","13":"tag-mexico-travel","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5127"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14843,"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5127\/revisions\/14843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.topmexicorealestate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}