25 April Sorry to leave San Cristobel, but we cannot stay forever. After a 4 or 5 hour bus trip, winding through the jungle covered hills we arrive at Palenque. It is hot and humid. We catch a van to our jungle resort, just outside the national park. Our room has a gecko to keep us company. Didn´t do anything today except sweat, sleep and drink (and eat). Apparently the area is awash with plants containing natural highs. Welcome to hippyville and bongo drums.
26 April Met our morning guide, Sa
lvador. We join up with a Canadian couple, which makes our share for the guide cheaper and head out on a 2 hour jungle work. It was absolutely fabulous We saw howler monkeys, crawled into an opening in the side of a hill, which turned out to be a mayan building and came across the lost temple. Just like Indiana Jones. It was then time to see the, so far exposed ancient city of Palenque. Words cannot properly describe how wonderful it is.
27 April This time we had an 8 hour bus trip to Merida. Along the way we see the gulf of mexico. In one small town there was a sand bagged police station. Not sure if it was because of floods or they were expecting trouble. Merida is hot. From what we understand it has two temperatures. Hot and hotter. The northern hemisphere plays havoc with our sense of direction and we get lost on our after dinner walk.
28 April. We join up with some other foreigners for the day and head off to a couple of Mayan sites. Uxmal and Kabah. They are pretty good, but suffer from comparison with Palenque. Our guide apparently has to fill in each moment of silence and talks about the romans on the way to Uxmal and when we arrive speaks to us like we are third year architecture students. Not sure if he has noticed that the iguanas are the only ones listening.
29 April A couple of hours on the bus and we arrive at Chichen Itza. Reasonably spectacular. Our guide, Felipe leads us around the site, explaining about the relevance of the sun and rain and showing lots of pictures about how important this site was a thousand or so years ago. Notice he´s starting to sweat. It must be hot. In fact everyone is sweating a lot. We catch the 4.30 bus to Playa del Carmen on the Carribean coast and arrive around 8 pm. Our tour leader Tiago takes us to a little restaurant away from the coast where we have some fantastic tortillas, Allambre style (various meats excluding grass hopper). Lyn then has her first second and third margarita.
30 April Did nothing. Unless you think getting laundry done and then wandering to a mexican super store something. Playa is a bit weird and nothing like other parts of Mexico we have seen. Very Gold Coast, Australia. Noticed that a lot of prices here are expressed in US dollars and then Mexican Pesos in much smaller print. The entire group went out to dinner at Fusion, a restaurant approved by Lonely Planet. The waitress was concerned about me ordering cajun fish which apparently might be too spicy. I think vegemite has more kick. The fish however was very nice. Said goodbye to Tiago. He did a great job considering what he had to deal with. Apparently he takes up a tour leader position in Europe soon and we both wish him the very best. Adios amigo.
When Grass Hoppers attack!
lvador. We join up with a Canadian couple, which makes our share for the guide cheaper and head out on a 2 hour jungle work. It was absolutely fabulous We saw howler monkeys, crawled into an opening in the side of a hill, which turned out to be a mayan building and came across the lost temple. Just like Indiana Jones. It was then time to see the, so far exposed ancient city of Palenque. Words cannot properly describe how wonderful it is.27 April This time we had an 8 hour bus trip to Merida. Along the way we see the gulf of mexico. In one small town there was a sand bagged police station. Not sure if it was because of floods or they were expecting trouble. Merida is hot. From what we understand it has two temperatures. Hot and hotter. The northern hemisphere plays havoc with our sense of direction and we get lost on our after dinner walk.
28 April. We join up with some other foreigners for the day and head off to a couple of Mayan sites. Uxmal and Kabah. They are pretty good, but suffer from comparison with Palenque. Our guide apparently has to fill in each moment of silence and talks about the romans on the way to Uxmal and when we arrive speaks to us like we are third year architecture students. Not sure if he has noticed that the iguanas are the only ones listening.
29 April A couple of hours on the bus and we arrive at Chichen Itza. Reasonably spectacular. Our guide, Felipe leads us around the site, explaining about the relevance of the sun and rain and showing lots of pictures about how important this site was a thousand or so years ago. Notice he´s starting to sweat. It must be hot. In fact everyone is sweating a lot. We catch the 4.30 bus to Playa del Carmen on the Carribean coast and arrive around 8 pm. Our tour leader Tiago takes us to a little restaurant away from the coast where we have some fantastic tortillas, Allambre style (various meats excluding grass hopper). Lyn then has her first second and third margarita.
30 April Did nothing. Unless you think getting laundry done and then wandering to a mexican super store something. Playa is a bit weird and nothing like other parts of Mexico we have seen. Very Gold Coast, Australia. Noticed that a lot of prices here are expressed in US dollars and then Mexican Pesos in much smaller print. The entire group went out to dinner at Fusion, a restaurant approved by Lonely Planet. The waitress was concerned about me ordering cajun fish which apparently might be too spicy. I think vegemite has more kick. The fish however was very nice. Said goodbye to Tiago. He did a great job considering what he had to deal with. Apparently he takes up a tour leader position in Europe soon and we both wish him the very best. Adios amigo.
When Grass Hoppers attack!
excellent reading material you are posting! love it. You should be able to right pieces for the lonely planet. I think Tiago would be thinking he can conquer all tourists world wide is he hung around with you for so long. xo your eldest.
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