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Postcards from

Yucatan

Sunrise at Turtle Bay in Tulum, just a few yards from the
Hotel El Pez. Opposite: Some of the guest quarters at the
Hotel El Pez in Tulum. Bottom: Art work at Casa de los
Venados in Valladolid.

After taking photos of sunbathing iguanas amid the ruins, we biked to Open to the public every day for a 10 a.m. tour, the Casa is a phantasma-
town for lunch then back to the Playa. During some serious idling that goria of fantastical pieces in riotous Technicolor. Not just Day-of-the-
afternoon by Turtle Cove we chatted a bit with Julia Bitton, one of the Dead skulls and the familiar “alebrijes” (carved animals) from Oaxaca,
El Pez managers. When she walked off, we noticed she was barefoot and but floor-to-ceiling bas reliefs, twisted iron sculptures, paintings, pot-
her toenails were painted the red of the dragon fruit cottage. Oh, and tery, crucifixes, candelabras, portraits on dining chairs, laughing skel-
yes, she was Lithe, Beautiful and Young. Straight out of a Calvin Klein etons, terra cotta market ladies, and Frieda Kahlo’s face on tile, canvas,
shoot. paper mache, and on the back of a bench with Diego Rivera.

Love, Every wall is adorned, every shelf is crammed. Some 3,000 pieces from
all over Mexico. Around 40 percent of them, John Venator told us, were
John and Jody personally commissioned. Few of the artists were academically trained.
“Just folk art made by simple people,” John said.
Dear Ron,
“Collecting is an incurable disease,” he said. “Either you’re a collector or
Valladolid has grown up. Once just a bus stop between Tulum and Mer- you’re not. As a kid, I started
ida, it’s now a Destination. collecting baseball cards and
tin soldiers.”
It always had a lively central square punctuated by the S-shaped benches
called “confidentes” and it own civic “cenote” – one of the Yucatan’s mag- When we asked him why he
ical, mystical sink holes that may hold Mayan treasure or the bones of chose to focus on folk art, he
sacrificial virgins. Now they‘ve added restaurants with cuisine instead just shrugged. “Why do you
of food and a string of upscale businesses along Calle 41that includes like poached eggs and I like
the Chocolate Maya factory and museum, the perfumery Coqui Coqui, fried eggs?” he answered. “I
and Ariane Dutzi’s shop featuring handbags-for-the-stars made from can’t say. It just spoke to us.”
feed-grain sacks and Rodeo Drive prices.But the town’s newest main
attraction is 400 years old: the Casa de los Venados. Love,
Just a block off the central square, the Casa had been an abandoned John and Jody
wreck until 2000 when Chicagoans John and Dorianne Venator bought
it and spent the next eight years renovating. They turned rubble into an
Architectural Digest-worthy showplace with 18 bathrooms, 22 air condi-
tioning systems, five guest suites, and a pool with a glass bridge. And the
country’s largest collection of privately held Mexican folk art.

Wine Dine & Travel Summer/Fall 2015 91