Traveling Through Kyrgyzstan, Part 1: The Return to the Yurt Campsby Randi / October 4, 2017
After too many nights in freezing cold yurt camps, we started the next section of our Kyrgyzstan country tour, which would take us a little more towards civilization and, even better, into guest houses! We packed so much activity into these extremely active days and got to see so much of the country, which we grew to love. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have to pee outside anymore, maybe because I finally got to wash my hair, but I started having a swell old time.
Day 3
“Put your mind to it go for it…get down and break a sweat!”
We woke up on Day 3 in our gross antsy yurt in the Kelemche Jailoo, after a night banging into the anchor swinging over my mattress pad. After a plate of kasha for breakfast (dudes I really love kasha!), I had to say goodbye to my little floofer ball o’ bear workshop, pictured above. This pupster was such a bad little baby but so flinging flanging adorable! It was hard to leave, but we had a long trek in front of us. 18 kilometers, actually, to our next sleeping destination of Kyzart village. For another day, we would follow Melis as he rode his horse and we walked like chumps behind him in the heat and up the endless hills. Still better than riding a horse though.
The first few kilometers were pretty decent, although it was super dry and my eyes started going really fast. Luckily we had a lovely little stop by Melis’s favorite spot, a grassy shady treelined area by a big creek (small river?). So nice. I was going to pee behind one of the trees but Z exclaimed “You can’t pee on Melis’s favorite spot!” True.
I enjoy activity and exercise but 18 kilometers across mountains added up to a lil too much but fast! There were some really steep hills in the second half that damn near knocked us out, with Melis of course amused, watching from the top of the hills from atop his noble steed. (She called me a steed!) Unfortunately, my left hip started throbbing, which is funny because my right hip is usually the one that gives me trouble. (Not funny ‘haha’, I guess.) But we had many more miles to go, trekking over rocks and hills and up and up and down those bullshitty gravel paths. So when we finally arrived in Kyzart Village, my hip was completely frozen. Nooooope.
the road that never ends
flat bit!
Finally we saw VILLAGE! and PEOPLE! you could say we saw Village People! And not just any, but little children who RAN up the road to meet us when we entered the village bounds. Melis went ahead to meet their little scampering feet and gave them big hugs. GUYS, they were his kids! He lives in the village with his family! It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. They were so cute and so happy to see their dad. Almost as happy as I was to be done walking for the day.
Melis told his kids he’d see them at home (I mean I imagine) and finished leading us to our guest house in the village, where we would be staying for the night. Despite knowing that ‘guest house’ was on our itinerary for tonight, I had refused to get my hopes up that it would be anything more than a little shack in a camp where I’d still have to pee outside. Remember in that amazing (terrible) (no amazing) Meg Ryan-Tim Robbins movie “I.Q.” about Einstein (such great nonsense) when Walter Matthau (RIP <3) as Einstein said “I’d rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right”? I think about that quote at least every day (since 1994) because well I don’t wanna be a fool! Mama didn’t raise no fool. And I didn’t want to optimistically imagine that that night I wouldn’t have to walk outside an actual house to get to an outhouse and then arrive and be proved wrong like a fool like a FOOL. That would be not so fun. But luckily I was wrong because we were led into a nice little REGULAR house! With a bedroom with BEDS near A REGULAR BATHROOM! With a toilet and a sink and a shower! Dance dance dance!
We had a lovely lunch with the hosts at their dining room table, set up in the traditional plentiful manner we’ve grown to love (so much melon!), and relaxed in indoor glory. I ate so much watermelon. And then we realized that no one was going to get up from the table until we did, which was super awks, and we didn’t feel comfortable taking such responsibility in someone else’s house, so finally after a long time of sitting in silence playing with our forks, I finally asked if we were allowed to shower. Z said, “I think they would prefer it.” We smelt. So we got to shower! This was the longest I’d ever gone without washing my hair ewwww. But it’s clean now! After we got clean, we just laid around on our single beds (we had three in our room!). My hip was stupid frozen from walking on it when it hurt so I literally couldn’t get up from the bed all afternoon. I tried to find a reading position that didn’t make it throb but I failed. But at least I won’t freeze tonight!
Before dinner, we took a short walk around the village, finding a nice little mosque (above) and lotssss of children who chased us while screaming “HELLO! HELLO!” I know it sounds adorable but after three months of children AND adults shouting HELLO at you it gets beyond annoying.
Dinner was a nice veg stirfry mixture kind of thing and – you guessed it – a GIANT plate of cucumber and tomato salad. I had a lot of bread too because, like the watermelon in this region, the bread was RG too. Also we hiked like 30 kilometers in 27 hours and my hip was wrecked AF! I get to eat all the bread!
I had the best night’s sleep in a week.
Day 4
“Things are looking up…in DULOC!”
Day 4
“Things are looking up…in DULOC!”
After such good warm sleep, I had a plate of melon for breakfast – the fruits of my labors from the previous evening, when Sacha and the family asked me what I would want for breakfast and I said ‘just fruit please’ and they spent 10 minutes trying to convince me to have a plate of shredded potato instead and I was like please just fruit is fine I’ll grab an apple from the basket and they were like ‘but potato though’. I guess no one has just fruit for breakfast in these parts.
At about 9:30am we left for Kochkor village, for a quick stop to get water and whatever groceries we needed and then for the main morning event – a traditional carpet factory.
obsessed with the poster for the October Revolution in the background
See how pretty the woman’s creations are? Keep that in mind for when I reveal what we made.
So, a traditional Kyrgyz (or any, really) carpet factory meant that they use wool and felt. Despite knowing for several days that this traditional cultural art tour was on the agenda, I didn’t even think about the wool aspect before we arrived and they explained it all to us, which I guess was pretty stupid. But despite a decade of veganism, I guess I spent all my worry and attention on making sure the food would be taken care of rather than ensuring that the activities would be vegan. Getting out of horse-riding was enough, I assumed! Once I realized oh this is all wool, it was way too late to say anything. And I’m not sure I would have said anything anyway – this was our one hands-on cultural art exposure in the whole country, and my opposition to their use of wool would literally have accomplished nothing besides cutting our activities and limiting our learning about the culture.
whacking the wool with metal rods to…soften it?
Admittedly, I’m glad I didn’t have the foresight to cancel this activity, because it was actually really fun. Unlike other factory tours that get added to tourist itineraries as boring ways to try to force souvenir-buying, we actually learned a lot here, and the private instruction made us appreciate Kyrgyz art more than any other visit in the country did. The people were nice and accommodating and didn’t laugh at us too hard when they had us make our own little carpet out of scraps.
That’s right – they made us do art. The lady instructing us on how to make the main type of carpet showed us every step of the process and then made us create the design and then physically make the carpet. It was embarrassing! Neither of us are artistic, and when put on the spot we are almost anti-artistic. Also, it’s a very physical process that I imagine takes a lot of practice to get the hang of, so our first attempts at dancing and stomping on the rolled up bamboo holder to squeeze the water out was, well, not graceful.
First, you take metal rods and beat the tufts of felt so they are soft, I guess, as in the picture above. Then, you arrange your design on a bamboo frame, pictured below with the lady laying out the base brown square.
Then we added bits of colored felt on top of the brown square to make our gorgeous design, after which the lady rolled it up in the bamboo, tied the rolled up tube with rope, poured boiling water over the rolled up tube, and used the rope to squeeze it, DANCED on the tube, then made US dance on it and jump up and down on it for 10-15 minutes to get the water out, lather rinse repeat, and then unroll the tube and marvel at your beautiful art as you wash it with cold water and soap.
well this is embarrassing
Are you guys ready to see the art we created? Are you? Remember than everyone on my mom’s side of the family (EVERYONE) is like a professional artist. I did not inherit those genes.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. It’s BARELY our initials. (Ed. note: this is now framed and hanging in our living room.)
After we were hailed and celebrated as Kyrgyzstan’s most acclaimed artistes, they feted us with a lovely lunch in the yurt-for-show in the backyard. We had so much nice food and guess what the main event (for me) was? LENTIL SOUP! What a happy day!
eating yurts are better than sleeping yurts
After lunch, we packed up our gorgeous piece of wet wool and started the drive around Issyk-Kul lake, which we would eventually go completely around. We drove along the southern side, going counterclockwise (or anti-clockwise as they say in the UK, one of the things I fully approve of). Issyk-Kul lake is the largest lake in Kyrgs and second largest saltwater lake in the world (after the Caspian). The name means ‘warm lake’ because, despite being in the Tian Shan mountains which are all snow capped in these parts, it never freezes. Well aren’t you lucky! The drive for the few hours to the Fairytale Canyon was so beautiful! Yay water! I love water! And it was regular summer warm now! The view from the car was so fun – beautiful lake and beach and swimmers on the left, desert and mountains on the right. Kyrgyzstan had ALL the climates and environments all at the same time!
looking to the left
looking to the right
looking to the right a minute later
We hiked around Fairytale Canyon and saw how the gorgeous peaks and cliff faces really did look like something out of a fairy tale! From a magical elephant to a castle in the sky, everywhere we turned had a spellbinding view. We barely made a dent in this huge place. Despite all the wonderful sights, the clearest memory we took away with us of Fairytale Canyon was the white man standing outside the entrance wearing a Ben Carson for President t-shirt. We COULD NOT.
Anyway, here are some pretty pictures of the parts that didn’t make us lose even more faith in humanity.
NOT CHINA!
ALSO NOT CHINA
PARTING THE MOUNTAIN SEA
CASTLE ON A CLOUUUUUUUD
DORK
I’m in a fairy tale and not the shitty new season of Once Upon A Time kind!
After we explored this spectacular canyon, we drove back to the lake shore for a swim! Yayyyy it was time to swim! We changed into our suits in the car (this is MUCH HARDER to do than Jennifer Grey made it look in Dirty Dancing. I was cursing that movie for days afterward) and relaxed in the beautiful blue water. I know what you’re thinking – wait, this is all the same day? All these varied and fun activities in one day? I know! In one day we’re doing more than we did in a week on the Mongolia country tour. (Ok one day I will be done bashing that.) You know how much I love water – in drinking form, melon form, and looking at form, so it should be no surprise that swimming in form also makes me sublimely happy.
Issyk Kul was SO lovely
I FUCKING HATE THIS HAT
The water was cold but it was so fun to be swimming again. We had a great time, except for the CRAZY lady with her family nearby who splashed us and wouldn’t leave us alone. She was a lunatic and we tried to say please leave us alone and she just kept saying (in Russian) GO UNDER GO UNDER AHHAHAH I’M A LUNATIC! It was infuriating but luckily didn’t ruin our time.
Like I said before, Issyk-Kul is the second largest saline lake in the world. Sacha told us some facts about it, and said that “the lake is a little salty” because 260 rivers flow into it and none flow out of it. And then he said it’s also salty because of all the tourists. And we laughed and he kept going, saying “and tourists and no toilets!” and we laughed and then he said to himself (but I heard!) in his thick Russian accent “this is a joke” and I almost threw up trying not to throw up laughing at this without him knowing I heard.
seriously the view from the lake. we could see snow-capped mountains from our swim!
At our next guest house
After our swim, we drove the rest of the way to the village of Tamga, where we were staying in a LOVELY little guest house run by a LOVELY older couple. It was such a nice place. There were other tourists there but none staying on our floor of the one house (there were two houses) so it was like we were alone in a house! I had my own bathroom! Dance emoji dance emoji! The husband and wife running things used to be serious mountain climbers and so the dining area was decorated with absolutely incredible photos of their most impressive treks and climbs up the snowiest and tallets of peaks. The house had an exquisite garden that made us really jealous as we have not been able to keep a plant alive on our patio as of yet. Our room was the standard little basic with the single beds but it was clean and nice. All the vegetables and fruit came straight from the garden, and you could tell. I almost didn’t even care about having more cucumber and tomato and eggplant and tomato and peppers and tomato when they were that fresh. I cared a little. They also grew apricots and made delicious apricot jam. Best of all, they had wifi! It was super weak but enough that I could send a few texts to my fam and send a few angry tweets to Trump defenders. What a great day! Will day 5 continue the fun? Find out soon on the next episode of “how many times will she pee today, Johnny!” Byeees.
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Eating Vegan in St. Petersburg: So Much More than Buckwheat and Pickles
I knew St. Petersburg would be the easiest place of the summer for me to find vegan food, but I didn’t know it would be so good too! I made a HappyCow list a mile long before we left, but I barely scratched the surface of it because most regular restaurants had something I could eat. Being so close to western Europe means the vegan thing is starting to catch on, and there are a few restaurants that have gone all in with menus labelled with vegan options! For the most part though, you have to just figure out with your brain what dishes could be vegan, but there are lots of options. When all else fails, there’s Teremok, and there’s pickles, and there’s hleb (bread, the most important word to learn).
Right after leaving the hostel, we ran across the tiniest hole in the wall bakery with huge Georgian-style lavash breads in the window, the kind that’s a big floofy circle with two handles coming straight out the sides. I want bread handles! I went in and found an old babushka cooking her breads. That’s all it was, a tiny place with an old grandmama and her oven and her bread. The bread looked amazing and I asked for one. Well, first I tried to ask if it was just bread or if it was stuffed with cheese like that sort of thing sometimes is. Problem is, I didn’t know how to say “stuffed” and babushka didn’t know a lick of English. I knew how to say “with cheese” and “with milk”, so I said those phrases in question form, but she thought I was asking to get the bread with cheese on it, and she doesn’t do that, and so there was much confusion. I somehow got it across that ‘no cheese/milk is good’, then I THINK she said ‘just flour and water!’ or something to that effect, and we finally established that the magic looking fluffy as all get out bread was safe for me. Unfortunately, it being a tiny little hole in the wall, babushka couldn’t break the 1000 ruble bill we had – we had JUST gotten money and hadn’t been able to break anything and SHE wasn’t going to break it! Her breads cost 40 rubles! The change would wipe her out! So husband ran back to the hostel to make change (there was nothing in between, really) while I…tried to make conversation. It did not work but it was hilarious and fun. Another woman came out and I THINK she said she was from Georgia (the country), and after a few moments of me saying nonsense I realized she was asking where I was from, and like always I didn’t know whether to say USA or London so I said both. It was a lot of confusion on all fronts. Luckily, Husband got back soon and we bought THE BEST BREAD EVER. Of course I don’t have a picture of it or the babushka because I’m pretty sure it was all just a hallucination, but I will always remember this amazing bread and this ridiculously fun first encounter with Russian people.
pickles!
For dinner on that first night, we were around the popular (and well populated) Nevsky Prospekt, with all the side streets shooting off of it full of hopping restaurants. We looked at a few menus before choosing the very adorably titled Masha i Medved, or Masha and the Bear. They had a long menu, which yes means it is probably a tourist trap, but also means lots of options and higher chance of veg items. That’s the tradeoff, I think, with going to maybe more expensive touristy places – they usually have more vegetables. Of course we started with a pickle plate, and while I’ve never been a huge pickle fan, I am ready and willing to eat them all across Russia, especially because I couldn’t fit my bottle of probiotics in my overstuffed pack. The pickled mushrooms were kind of weird, but the pickled green beans were surprisingly yummy. Luckily the boys ate the hot peppers; I was in no mood.
Yummy eggplant and mushrooms (okay and red pepper) |
apparently I forgot to take a picture of my salad but you know what cucumber and tomato looks like! So here’s a pic of my glass of mors (cranberry ish juice) instead enjoy |
For my mains, I had lots of small veggie dishes to choose from. Most focused on potatoes and mushrooms, and I figure I’m going to be eating a lot of those two things (and not just because I know the words for them!) as we go more east in Russia. So I chose the cucumber, tomato, and red pepper salad, and the grilled eggplant & mushroom dish. Both contained red pepper, so it was a lot of red pepper, and you know I’m not the biggest fan of red pepper, but I need to not get scurvy so I did my best. Both were very basic, standard versions of their respective dishes, but that’s fine, especially when travelling. I just want vegetables. The stir-fry actually tasted really good. I liked it. Hooray for Masha. Hooray for the bear.
just realizing now that the box even says vegan and ‘no dairy’ oops forest for the trees
Back on the Nevsky Prospekt, we went into the Singers headquarters, which is now a huge bookstore, and I zeroed in on their snack section. And lo and behold, a box of bars! I spent decades reading the ingredients, or trying to, before realizing that they actually said the word ‘vegan’ on the front. Oh us vegans and our immediate flipping to the underside of the flap to get to the ingredients, never assuming that our work would be done for us! I bought three. They are amazing, some brand called ‘Take a Bite’, and I did, and I need to find more in Moscow because they are just like Larabars – raw mixes of nuts and dates and other dried fruit, and some with cocoa. Obsessed.
After dinner and before clubbing (just kidding) (well we did go to a bar really late) (so tired), we went into a cute little fruit shoppe to stock up for breakfast. I bought the most beautiful looking apples, a bunch of good looking bananas, and a box of cherries. I was obsessed with the bucket of cherries, and if I was allowed I would have jumped in. I love cherries, and I live on bananas, and giant apples, as big as you could find, are probably my favorite food in the world. So, even though I labelled everything and put them in the hostel fridge in a bag with my name on it, of course someone stole my bananas and my magical apple. Of course. They left the box of cherries. They were sort of sour. Like my view of humanity.
love this cherry bucket! I also adore cutting into whole watermelons but we saw a lot of watermelon in our Kazakhstan researching so, saving for that
DO YOU SEE THESE INCREDIBLE PEANUT BUTTER FLAVORS THE CHERRY BUCKET STORE HAD??!! I can’t even get over it. I wasn’t allowed to buy them. No fun purchases! (No room, really)
cute little space!
Before our visit to the Hermitage, we went to the first of my HappyCow finds because the top review said it was right across from it. It’s a small cafe called Kafe Troitsky Most, because it is on Troitsky Most, the bridge over the nearest canal. It really is the best place to go when you visit the Hermitage because I didn’t notice much else nearby. So there’s a hot menu on the wall, but there’s a display case of several great looking salads. I asked if I could do a mix of salads and set about picking the best looking ones that I could clearly see were just veggies. I pointed to one in the back that had strips of brown and I asked if it was meat and the super nice lady said “nyet, soya!” They were soy meat strips and everything in the case was vegetarian! Everything in the cafe! Yippee! That soy meat salad was SOO good. I really liked everything, actually. I would totally return if we were here longer. My kind of place, just simple salads that you get to mix together and throw a piece of bread on top.
For a nicer dinner one night, we went to Cafe Botanika, another all-vegetarian place that we walked by at least 1400 times because it was between our hostel and all the things. I was so excited to go to a real sit-down restaurant that was all vegetarian. The menu spans many pages and includes sections of various cuisines, like an Indian section, a Chinese section, an Italian section, which is kind of odd but hey if you can do it, do it. While the food was fine, it was much better for vegetarians that it was for vegans. There weren’t many mains that were vegan, and in fact there were zero vegan mains under the Russian food section! Which is kind of ludicrous! Even it’s famous house burger was not vegan. I could have had pasta or an Asian tofu and veg stirfry, which is like hey I also could have stayed home and cooked for myself. Luckily, they had Russian vegan food for starters, so I got a bowl (more like cup) of borscht for my main and an avocado-filled salad to start. We also shared crudite and hummus, because if you have hummus I’m going to eat it. It was all fine, but I’m just kind of mad that there wasn’t more available. I am really glad I had borscht though, as unremarkable as it was, because here traditional borscht has meat in it. Botanika was a perfectly nice place and if you are vegetarian it would be incredible for you, but for a vegan looking for Russian food or even just stuff that’s interesting, there’s better.
we’re gonna need more hummus
the borscht had 4 kidney beans in it |
i like salad though |
We had great luck with Cafe Ukrop, a small chain of veggie cafes all over the center of the city. We went to two of them! The menu has vegan stuff clearly labeled, and is the complete opposite of Botanika in that stuff you would assume wouldn’t be vegan (like the ravioli and the vegetable cream soup) was indeed vegan. Fun! The food wasn’t anything special, but it was decent and healthy, and the place had a nice vibe and adorable decor, so it was just all good. It’s a sweet place where you can sit for hours because the seating includes sofas, comfy chairs, and even a few porch swings! There are also signs advocating cleaning up the environment and eating organic food. At least I think that’s what it said. It could have been anything.
We tried a lot of dishes over our two meals at two different locations. My favorite was the Caesar salad, not because the dressing even remotely resembled Caesar dressing, but because it came with fried tofu croutons. There were only 4-5 of them in the whole salad though, so they really need to add more to it. I was surprised by the Olivier Salad, it’s like a traditional Russian salad of tiny chopped potatoes, peas, and carrots formed into a circle and covered in mayo, but the vegan version was 1000x better than that nonsense (I’m guessing, because mayo blechh).
We tried a lot of dishes over our two meals at two different locations. My favorite was the Caesar salad, not because the dressing even remotely resembled Caesar dressing, but because it came with fried tofu croutons. There were only 4-5 of them in the whole salad though, so they really need to add more to it. I was surprised by the Olivier Salad, it’s like a traditional Russian salad of tiny chopped potatoes, peas, and carrots formed into a circle and covered in mayo, but the vegan version was 1000x better than that nonsense (I’m guessing, because mayo blechh).
better than it looks |
same for this one |
As for other starters, we had a mushroom soup that was decent, but it came with a little pot of sour cream, and even though the soup was marked as vegan, I just wasn’t sure about the sour cream. Husband wasn’t sure either and he usually can tell what’s vegan or not, so I’m a bit nervous about the whole thing even though this was days ago. We also tried the avocado cucumber rolls, which sounds like boring sushi but was more like roll-ups, with an avocado cream mixed with herbs inside strips of cucumber. They were fine, a good refreshing raw food dish when we needed some fresh vegetables, though maybe needed more flavor/salt.
cucumber rolls from the heavens |
mushroom soup with the devious sour cream. or not. we don’t know |
For main courses, we tried three – the ‘famous’ burrito, the ravioli, and the lentil burger. I think the burrito (more like a wrap (they are different) was the best of the three and the one I would order again. They said it was their most popular dish. Filled with smoked tofu, lentils, and various veggies, it was smaller and thus with less filling that western wraps/burritos. but it was pretty good. And I don’t know if the wrap was gluten-free, but they did that thing I love about gluten-free wraps where heating it turns the breading into a cracker. I don’t know why I just like it. Probably because anything resembling a soggy wrap makes me nauseous so if you’re gonna veer in one direction go towards the crackery and not the soggy. The ravioli was fine, a pleasant surprise that it was vegan, but it was because it was filled mostly with just greens, not a tofu ricotta like I expected or any sort of interesting play on the greens. Just sauteed plain greens. The tomato sauce it came with wasn’t great but hey they were still ravioli so still fine. The burger I liked, but it could have used more pickles and tomato – I didn’t even know they were on it until I was halfway through, the pieces were so small. The patty tasted a little like frozen peas, which is a little disappointing. It really needed a strong sauce to go on it and it would have been amazing. Kind of true of everything here. It was all decent and nice tasting but nothing was like wow. Still, it was all very satisfying, especially when traveling.
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We also had great beverages from Ukrop – a very interesting grapefruit-basil juice, a beet-carrot-cucumber-apple kind of regular juice, and best of all a halva milkshake! It wasn’t really a milkshake, more of the UK-style of milkshake meaning flavored milk, but it was pretty great! It was just soy milk mixed with halva so you can’t go wrong. They threw in a handful of slivered almonds, some of which stayed on top for the picture while the rest floated down to the bottom, so we spent a lot a lot of time trying to chopstick them up.
juices yay |
halva milk yummm |
But honestly, probably my favorite place in St. Petersburg, and Husband’s too, is Teremok, a famous fast food chain. Russian fast-food, of course, so although it looks like McDonald’s, the already-made ready-to-be-tossed-down-the-counter dishes are blini and borscht and buckwheat porridges with all kinds of meat and cheese, etc. Blini, if you don’t know, are Russian pancakes but are more like crepes, usually stuffed with all manner of food, from savoury to sweet, meat to apple caramel sauce. When we went into our first of many, many Teremoks that we passed, I assumed it was a) just for a lark and b) not for me, considering blini have eggs and milk in them. Well luckily they gave us an English menu because otherwise I’d never have seen this remarkable menu section on a freaking fast food menu:
LENTEN VEGETARIAN MENU! GUYS, that is the dream! In most countries, the traditional food for Lent is vegan food. So that’s a great way to communicate what you’re looking for when you can’t speak the language. I was so excited and shocked to see this. Of course we went back to Teremok enough so I tried three of the four vegan options at least once, and happily they have more in Moscow. Even happilier, they just opened a branch in NYC! How ridiculous is that! That’s actually how we knew about them. Anyway, the buckwheat porridge is probably my favorite food so far. I love buckwheat, so there’s that, and it’s so simple with pickles and a few green onions and whatever, it’s plain and bland and healthy and that’s kind of what I love. Same with the vinagret (mixed chopped veg salad, usually with beet, in vinaigrette) and the pea soup. Plain, inoffensive, decent, healthy food. I’m obsessed. I can’t believe my fave place was pretty much Russian McDonald’s but if McDonald’s had such healthy and good vegan food I’d probably be there. Well just when traveling; I’m not a monster.
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I knowww it ended up being buckwheat (with pickles) that was my favorite dish, the title of this post is so misleading. Not gonna change it. Oh we also ate at a Georgian restaurant and I had this boiled spinach and walnut pate (with more of my favorite bread) that was really good and it was topped with pomegranate so I’m going to share the picture just randomly right now.
I also went to a falafel place called Pita’s and had a very nice cabbage and orange salad and a falafel wrap! There are a few Pita’s across the city. The wrap with hummus is vegan, but apparently the ‘original’ wrap is not! But who would ever order falafel without hummus?!
So St. Petersburg was super vegan friendly and I didn’t even go to all the places on HappyCow! I didn’t even go to like 5 of them! It’s a great city in so many ways, and you will eat pretty well. We will see what happens in the next city!
A Wondrous Place For Me & Yucatan: Valladolid, Chichen Itza, & Our Fave Cenotes
Living in London, we missed good Mexican food so much that we decided to take an epic trip to Mexico earlier this summer. Okay, we had other reasons too but the food, man, the food is incredible (and so easy for vegans)! So are the sights! And everything else! We had the best darn time making our way through the Yucatan and Mexico City. Today we’ll take a look at the first part of our trip: the Yucatan by way of Valladolid. In this section of our trip, before moving on to Merida, we saw the amazing ruins of Ek Balam and Chichen Itza, plus our favorite thing in Mexico (besides the food), the cenotes (natural sinkholes for swimming (“I call it my swimming hole”)).
Husbo and I had surprisingly never been to Mexico before this trip, surprisingly because we are from the USA and it seemed like everyone else we knew had at least been to Puerto Vallarta with their families or Cancun on spring break. Even drunk on a dare you make it to Cancun! Since we now live farther away, we had to make the most of this chance to see Mexico, a place I feel like it goes without saying is, like anywhere, in large part wonderful and nothing at all like Cheeto Mussolini would have you believe but a lot of things you hope go without saying nowadays do have to be said so alas I said it. We only had about 8 days, but we packed each day to the brim with activities, sights, and fun. And guacamole.
The first big decision, after the “We’re going to Mexico!” one, was deciding what we had time to properly see. It was hard to cross Tulum, the most popular Mexican beach right now for seemingly everyone on Instagram who loves green smoothies and yoga (hi), off the list, but it was more important for us to finally see the wondrous ancient ruins of the Yucatan than to lounge on the beach. We’re not really lounge-y people anyway, and we are definitely ‘climb around ancient ruins in 100 degree heat so you have something to complain about’ people. Well at least I am. You know I love complaining. So that meant four days in the Yucatan to see Chichen Itza, Uzmal, and other ruins we’d come to know and love along with our new best friend: the cenote. Then after a short flight, we’d spend four days in Mexico City, what the cool kids call CDMX, and seeing all those sights, eating all their food, and making lots of new dog friends! It’s a plan!
We flew into Cancun airport and immediately got the hell out of there. Well, not immediately – between baggage delays and the UNACCEPTABLE rental car delays (they kept taking Mexican customers who arrived well after us blahhh) it was two hours from landing till driving away – but after we were immediately greeted by guys with carts selling neon yardstick spring-break-resort-style drinks and dozens and dozens of resort representatives, we were like mmm bye. We are not rave-going people and even the Cancun airport is very much PARTAYYYY TIME! I mean I guess they know their main audience.
I’m really happy I brought a sandwich from Baltimore (where we were flying from) for the 3 hour-ish flight, because I didn’t see many options in the Cancun airport and we had a whole day of driving ahead of us. When we stopped to get gas, we did go a little nuts at the gas station convenience store buying more water (gotta drink that water!) fruit, chips (gotta eat that salt when you drink that water!), and my new favorite thing ever – lime & chili peanuts. Mexico does lime and/or chili everything better than anyone and it’s amazing.
The drive out of Quintana Roo and through the Yucatan was often lovely, shady with trees, with few other cars on the road until we got closer to the city of Valladolid. The city is the third largest in the state, with 45k+ residents at the time of the last census. I loved the vibe of Valladolid – relaxed, comfortable, and culturally old-fashioned in a nice way). At least that’s how it seemed to this tourist who was there one night and one night only and is about to say a whole bunch of things that, as usual, would probably make more knowledgeable folks and residents wince. And that, my dudes, brings us to the latest edition of:
Valladolid, named after the same named city in Spain (the capital when the Mexi version was founded, in 1543), was actually originally placed a bit aways from its current location, by a lagoon. That sounds lovely, sure, but the Spanish settlers soon realized stagnant water + heat = mosquitoes and humidity but yeah mostly mosquitoes and they were NOT having it (I mean I wouldn’t either) and they made authorities literally just move the entire city. I’ve never identified so hard with Spanish settlers.
Of course, settlers are bad and do bad things, so when the city moved, it displaced more Maya people and their buildings (they wanted those stones). The Mayan revolted, but, as always happens to the indigenous people, lost. Some bullshit. Almost 300 years later, the Mayan people revolted again, and after a noble was killed, the revolt grew and grew into legit battles and became a key location of Yucatan’s Caste War, when the native Maya all over the Yucatan revolted against the European descendants. The war lasted more than 50 years, ending due to occupation by the Mexican army. There were some reforms that addressed some of the problems, but tensions and violence persisted.
So, clearly, this is the perfect place to begin our lighthearted tourism! No, it is important to learn the history of any place you travel to, and we learned a great deal about the indigenous cultures throughout our trip, especially in Merida. Today, Valladolid is a charming and peaceful place that’s celebrated for its traditional architecture, lovely surroundings, dedication to craftsmanship, and its perfect location for accessing the big sites. It’s so special that it’s been named a Pueblo Magico of Mexico, or Magic City. Approved!
We arrived in the city late that first day after an afternoon of driving (and waiting for the car, yes I’m still mad) and checked in to the Hotel Meson del Marques, a charming (everything is charming here), sprawling, traditional hotel right off the main square of the town. Most importantly, it has a pool. When you go to Mexico in the summer, you need to make sure every place you stay has a pool. We spent almost zero time here, as we left early the next morning for our jam-packed day of sight-seeing (you’ll see; it’s like the fullest day ever), but we liked what time we did have.
After doing my #1 thing to do after a flight no matter how long it is (shower), we explored our one evening in this – say it with me – charming little city. The central square is definitely the highlight, full of locals, tourists, touts, food stalls, and general happy vibes.
we went in just to take this picture
we were on our way to dinner so I also prayed that our restaurant of choice was open
Our chosen restaurant for our only night in Valladolid was the wonderful Yerbabuena de Sisal, located in the trendy Sisal neighborhood near the above-shown convent and colorful Valladolid sign. Yerbabuena is the CUTEST DARN restaurant and is vegan-friendly. It’s not vegetarian, but they have plenty of exciting vegan offerings, delicious juices, and picture-worthy decor.
We were beyond excited for our first guacamole of the trip, and theirs did not disappoint. (I mean, I don’t think it’s possible to have less-than-stellar guacamole when in Mexico.) We were also delighted to find that Yerbabuena had the vegan-friendly Yucatan staple dip of sizil pak, a traditional Mayan pumpkin seed dip. SO GOOD!
Even though they didn’t have the vegan lasagna (they don’t have it till 8pm and we arrived at 7pm because we are not cool enough to eat at normal times in any Spanish-speaking locale, apparently), I was after Mexican food anyway (it’s literally why we came here) and I was thrilled to have tamales! I love tamales! These were great!
As you can see, it came with a side salad. Mexico, as you know if you’ve heard any lazy jokes from the past 50 years, is famous for giving tourists some tumtum troubs, and we knew to stay away from raw veg and unwashed produce in general. However, I had a feeling that if any restaurant were safe to trust, it was Yerbabuena. I’m happy to report I did not get sick! And I got to have a salad! My happiest day. (I wrote in my notes from this dinner: “I am eating the side salad make sure to note on the blog if I get sick or not!” I did not!) I get the tumtums super easily so I am confident in reporting that the salad here is safe for all.
We really pushed our luck on our first meal in Mexico, hilariously, because we also broke the other main rule about eating in this country: we had drinks with ice! They were amazing juices, one chaya (a spinach-like green we would have a lot this trip, loves it) with pineapple, and one tejate, a juice from the cocoa flower.
With its amazing food, including must-try traditional dishes like sizal pak and tamales and tejate and chaya and guacamole and really everything we had omg it was so delicious, plus safe-for-our-weak-stomachs salad AND ice, I wholeheartedly recommend dining at Yerbabuena when you visit Valladolid and the Yucatan.
After our yucatangfastic (omg sorry) dinner, we strolled through the city center again and saw what we would learn is a staple of nights all across the Yucatan: enormous dance parties in the street. But the fun adorable kind, full of older Mexicans dancing and playing music and having a jolly time while the nearby sidewalks are packed to the gills with people watching. It was so sweet.
On the way home, we also found incredible paletas, frozen fruit popsicles. I had my first and probably the best one ever. This was watermelon, and it was literally just perfect sweet frozen watermelon juice. Ugh so perfect, especially with the background of YA books in Spanish (I see you Bajo La Misma Estrella, trying to make me cry!).
It was a pretty great first night in the Yucatan, and our last relaxed segment of the entire trip. We had shit to do!!
After a decent night’s sleep and a very nice plate of fruit for breakfast, the next day we enjoyed the busiest and best day.
EK BALAM
Ek Balam is about a 30 minute drive from Valladolid. It often gets overlooked as tourists concentrate on the big kahuna, Chichen Itza, and the next biggest kahuna, Uxmal, but you must make room in your schedule for a visit to Ek Balam as well. It doesn’t require too much time – you could probably spend only an hour if you are pressed – but it is definitely a worthwhile starting point on your ruinous journey.
I’m like already tired
Ek Balam was the seat of a Mayan kingdom dating back to 1000 BCE, now a Yucatec-Mayan archaeological site. King Ukit Tan Lek Tok, who ruled during the height of this city’s power in 770 to about 800 AD, is buried in the Acropolis.
We got to Ek Balam early, and I suggest doing the same because you can climb all over (most of) the pyramids and structures here and you want to beat the heat and the crowds. It makes sense to see Ek Balam and Chichen Itza on the same day, so you may be thinking that it’s better to get to the big one early and have a better experience there. However, you can’t climb the structures at Chichen Itza anymore, so beating the heat for that reason is not applicable. Also, Chichen Itza is the biggest tourist attraction in this entire state – meaning, you will never beat the crowds. It’s always crowded. With Ek Balam, if you arrive early you might be one of only a handful there, so at least you will get one set of ruins almost to yourself! (Also, Chichen Itza is enormous in comparison, so the everpresent crowds, even in the afternoon, are never really a problem. You’ll see later!)
There are 45 structures at Ek Balam, but a lot of them are smaller and/or not permissible to climb so it seems smaller than it sounds, especially compared to the other sites. The big climbing challenge is the main structure, the Acropolis, and even if it wasn’t 100 degrees out it would be hard.
(Oh, side note: Yes I am talking about temperatures in Fahrenheit, obviously, because I am smart. Americans rightly get a lot of shit for their systems of measurement, and for the most part it’s deserved. Sure the metric system makes more sense than the random number of feet in a mile. But I will never stop arguing that Fahrenheit is such a better system for measuring weather temperatures than Celsius. Oh sure in Celsius your temps for the freezing and boiling of water are easy to remember (0 and 100) but that’s not the kind of information you’re after when discussing WEATHER. Fahrenheit has a wider number range for temperatures we actually use in average normal weather (below 0 to over 100F in a normal year in my city, versus what, -10 to 40C?? what is that nonsense), so you get more information from that number than you do in Celsius. It’s much more precise. I need everyone to stop lumping our use of Fahrenheit for weather into the ‘Americans can’t measure shit’ debate because the argument for Celsius when it comes to weather does not exist. This is the hill I will die on.)
Or maybe this is the hill I will die on – at least I was terrified I would:
Climbing up this monstrosity is a lot of fun (it’s fun to climb things!), but like all the giant pyramids and ruins we’d encounter on this trip, coming down is TERRIFYING. It’s so steep and the steps are so narrow and you are just going like straight down and omg it’s forking frightening. I went down a lot of these steps sitting down. It’s just safer. Omg I am so scared again looking at it. Fun story, so I climbed it, said yee haw, and made my way miraculously back down. But then I saw how cool the pictures we took of Z sitting on the steps looked, so I climbed back up and took some of those (like the one below) at different points on the stairs. Then I miraculously tempted fate and got safely down again and thanked the Mayan gods.
And this perspective lets you see how forkign steep this was, since you can’t even seen the steps I mean man
But THEN, when we were both on sacred ground again, we realized we forgot to take a selfie at the top, a thing we like to do when we climb things. So up again I went, for the third time, and down again I came, thinking that ‘third time’s the charm’ would mean something bad for me, but luckily I made it and please do not make me climb it again.
Aside from my terrors, it was a pretty great morning. Ek Balam costs 413 pesos (very typical for these sites) (about $20) and it’s cash only. As is the case with most tourist attractions in the Yucatan, there will be guys (yoots) hanging out in the parking lot who will offer to watch your car while you tour the site, for 20-30 pesos. Of course this is a scam, but you do it, okay? They really do watch your car and if you say no they will probably, um, not. So just suck it up and pay them, it’s fine.
CENOTES
After our climby climby morning at Ek Balam, we enjoyed my absolute favorite part of this trip: the cenotes. A cenote is a natural sinkhole formed from the collapse of bedrock, exposing groundwater underneath. The ancient Maya may have used these for sacrificial offerings but luckily I didn’t know that until after we swam in a bunch of them because ew and oh no. I got to enjoy these for what they were to me: beautiful natural swimming pools, one of my favorite things (pools in general; considering my favorite smell is the chlorine of indoor pools the ‘beautiful’ or ‘natural’ element isn’t required but it was definitely a perk here).
Our first stop was the Cenote X’keken, which I can’t even describe how I’m saying wrongly in my head let alone how to properly say it, I’m sorry. (Is it like schnecken?? now I want schnecken.) This cenote is well signed since it’s pretty popular. Going to Schnecken alone is 80 pesos, but a combined ticket with another cenote on the same grounds is 125. If you are short on cash, just the one is fine and you probably won’t swim in both anyway.
The cool/crazy thing about X’Keken is that it’s completely underground. The guards will point you through the grounds, past a semi-abandoned sort of circular mall with bathrooms and changing rooms and, luckily, one lady renting towels outside (we paid 30 pesos), and over to a hidden staircase leading underground into literally the bat cave. The cave is, indeed, filled with bats. It’s so freaking cool! The bats keep to themselves flitting around the roof of the cave so you don’t have to worry about them bothering you or anything.
As you can see it’s pretty big, and even with a crowd it doesn’t feel crowded. It was pretty awesome! Everyone just leaves their stuff along the sides of the rock, but of course leave whatever you can in your car.
After our little schnecken swim, we drove about an hour to my favorite place: the Yokdzonot Cenote. This location has my favorite cenote, as well as a great restaurant. And best of all, it’s also a women’s collective, run by the local women of the community. Entry only costs 80 pesos and it’s the most beautiful cenote ever.
We timed our day perfectly so we arrived at Yokzdonot (or as I say in my head without wanting to, yoka deez nuts (I am sorry)) for lunch. We learned about this place and their ability to make vegan food from a PPK friend (the best and og vegan forum, never to be surpassed never to be forgotten), and sure enough they brought me this very nice plate of steamed nopales (cactus), nicely flavored rice, refried black beans, cabbage slaw, and a whole plate of soft tortillas so I could wrap everything up in my own special messy way. We also of course got guacamole, which was great.
After we ate, we changed in the changing rooms + bathrooms that are right off the restaurant space, and then put everything we didn’t need back in the car, which was a little annoying to keep walking out to but so what who cares. And then we went swimming in the best cenote!
At first, I was annoyed at the rule that everyone who enters the cenote must wear a lifejacket, but honestly it ended up being good because I was pretty tired from the heat by this point and it was nice to just float and relax and enjoy the scenery without worrying about drowning. This was such a lovely experience, and luckily it wasn’t too crowded for most of our visit. Yokadeeznuts is not the kind of place that can accommodate big bus tour groups, fortunately, but more and more people seem to be discovering it. I’m so glad we had a relatively chill time here. I love this place so much.
After one of the most relaxing experiences in recent memory, we went back to the car, grabbed our clothes, went back to the restaurant, changed back into (gross, sorry) clothes, and girded our loins for the big forking thing.
CHICHEN ITZA
Chichen Itza was one of the largest Mayan cities, built in approximately 600 AD, actually not that long ago in the scheme of ancient ruins. A variety of architectural styles decorate the site, suggesting that the population here was more diverse than the rest of the Mayan world. A cenote on the site (not swimmable, sadly) was likely used for sacrificial purposes – as you learn pretty much everything in the ancient Mayan world was.
The famous pyramid, El Castillo, is also called the Temple of Kukulcan. Kukulcan was a Mayan feathered serpent god like the Aztec’s Quetzalcoatl, the inspiration for Wetzel’s Pretzels. You are no longer allowed to climb El Castillo, which, ya know, fine by me.
Like I said before, Chichen Itza is always crowded, so instead of futilely trying to beat the crowds or the heat, we decided to do the opposite on both counts and go late afternoon, so that we would finish exploring the site at its closing time. (Just under two hours was, surprisingly, more than enough time for us, and we usually take forever.) This sounds like the opposite of anyone’s advice for seeing any place, but honestly it was a great move! The site is ENORMOUS – so much more than the famous pyramid that we took 1000s of photos of – and goes on for miles. So, the crowd disperses fairly quickly and it doesn’t feel crowded at all. It’s especially spacious around El Castillo and the Great Ball Court (oh, we will learn about the games that happen in these ball courts in the Uxmal/Merida post, just you wait).
that’s a safe bet for anything you see in these sites
Entry to Chichen Itza is 480 pesos per person, and you have to pay in cash. I know you’ve seen information that says it accepts card, but they will tell you it’s cash only. And if you persist, they will tell you you can pay the main fee by card, but you still need to pay the 75 peso “federal fee” portion of the price in cash regardless, so it’s all annoying and just expect to pay cash everywhere even though the touts selling tees and tchotchkes inside the grounds have card payment capacity. At least there are toilets inside the grounds as well as in the entrance hall!
El Castillo and all of Chichen Itza was pretty incredible. I’m so glad I got to see it. I am so lucky and grateful that I got to see all of these spectacular places that I knew mythologically for so long, and I fully do not believe that all of this happened in one day. What a day! Once we closed down Chichen Itza, we got back in the car for the long drive to Merida, where our next adventure awaits.
