Today we’ve hung out in Valladolid, exploring the Chocolate Factory and museum, with many superb life-size dioramas and other displays depicting the fascinating history of the sacred cacao bean and beverage.

After buying some chocolate bars to take home, we visited the Casa de Los Venados (“House of the Deer”), a gorgeous18,000 square foot private residence and folk-art museum filled with over 3,000 colorful Mexican paintings and sculptures, where the owner, John Venator, greeted us personally. Afterwards we returned to our hotel where I am writing this blog.

23. Dining room art in Casa de Los Venados

24. Poker table at Casa de Los Venados

25. John Venator, owner of Casa de Los Venados

10:00pm, 1/8

After dinner tonight, we walked out of the restaurant and caught a spectacular video light show projected on the face of the mighty fortress-like church. From outer space, 66 million years ago, we watched the comet plunge into the Yucatán and wipe out the dinosaurs, sending cracks throughout the peninsula that filled with water and became cenotes. We saw Mayans throwing human sacrifices into them, as the caves became the Maya underworld of Xibalba.

26. Video light show on Valladolid church

The entire history of the land and the people unfolded across the façade of the church, depicting the Mayan mythology and the Spanish conquest, with images of Ek Balaam, then showing the stones of the local pyramid being torn apart and rebuilt into this massive cathedral. Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl—the great green feathered serpent—slithered all over the face of the church. It was all gorgeously psychedelic, as the church itself appeared to come apart and reassemble itself throughout. The narrative was in English, and the final words that boomed across the plaza were: “REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!”

27. Cathedral at Valledolid in daylight

Continued in Yucatán Pilgrimage: Day 6