Izamal is the Yucatan’s “magical” town. The Mexican government considers a town to be magical if it is rich in historical tradition, it must be located near tourist sites, accessible by good roads, and above all there must be a sincere attempt by the locals to develop the entire town into a magical place. Izamal is such a place and the locals are certainly doing their best to make sure it continues to be magical. Izamal may be one of the

The drive to Izamal, which is located just east of Merida, is about a one hour and fifteen minute drive from the port town of Progreso. The highway is great to drive on, going from a 4 lane highway, to the pereferico, then turning to Izamal for the last portion which was a very well marked 2 way highway. As you drive into the town of Izamal you are certainly aware of the effort made by the locals to paint the fronts of all their homes the same colors.

We drove into the town seeing all the yellow painted houses with white trim and cobblestone roads leading to the main courtyard by the convent. The Franciscan convent, which is built over one of the Mayan pyramids and is famous for the monk Fray Diego de Landa. Pope John Paul visited the convent in 1993 and is commemorated by a statue of the Pope in the convent courtyard. There is a museum in the convent (5 pesos /adult) where you can see all the paraphernalia which was used during the Pope’s visit.

We arrived and easily parked by the main courtyard and strolled over to the horse-drawn carriage (calesa) and were offered a tour by carriage for 3o minutes for 100 pesos or 1 hour for 200 pesos. All five us fit in the carriage and Andre, our tour guide, was more than willing to have one of the boys on the front with him as we cruised around town on the cobblestone roads. Along the tour we were allowed to disembark and walk around all the Mayan archaeological sites. We also saw some very old mayan homes along the way.

Evan & Noah certainly loved exploring the ruins, the first one we went to was fairly little but they still explored. By the time we got to the last one, Kinich Kakmo, Evan raced to the top, if you look in some of the pictures, he is the little white dot at the top in his Canada t-shirt!

After the horse-drawn carriage ride, we walked 2 blocks to the Hotel Kinich which has a fabulous restaurant Restaurante Kinich, a sabor de Izamal. Like always, we were almost the only ones in the restaurant as we were there right at opening time but this gave us time to explore the restaurant and enjoy ourselves. Evan, of course had the sopa de lima, Noah had the Panuchos, Lyn had a vegetable soup, Bev had a roast chicken, and I had the Pork Kinich with black bean soup.

After dinner we strolled back through the park and up to the convent where we think may have been a traditional wedding dance in the courtyard of the convent. This was complete with a procession of musicians, dancers, onlookers, and of course a procession is not a procession without somebody right beside you lighting fireworks!

We had come to the city at 4pm as we wanted to enjoy both the horse drawn carriage and the city in daylight, then have a relaxing dinner while we waited for the ‘light show spectacular’ which we had heard so much about. As a tourist you have to pay 89 pesos per adult and 5 pesos per child to have a chair and watch the ‘light show specatular’… I cannot say that I will go to watch the show again, but I am glad that we had the opportunity to see it at least once. The show lasts 30 minutes and is a combination of lights changing color…. ohhh ahhhh…. and a slide show projected onto the side of the convent. This slide show is very interesting and shows pictures of ancient Mayan ruins from all over Mexico and is in Spanish.

All in all, we are glad to have experienced the city of Izmal and Evan cannot wait to return to show other people the city of yellow. I think he just wants to return because we wouldn’t let him buy a hammock chair for ‘little blue’, his smallest stuffy, but he says he wants to show people the city of yellow. Noah will return for the horse-drawn carriage ride and the ruins, but he slept through the last half of the ‘light show spectacular’ so he may not want to experience that again…ever.

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