Shrooms, hippies and pyramids....

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So the other great thing to see in chiapas is appearantly, Palenque, well actually not Palenque, that is just a
boring ugly town, but if you take a collectivo for another 15 min or so you end up in El Panchan right next
to amazing pyramids. El Panchen again by itself is a bit weird, some 5 hostels, mixed together in a tourist zone, a huge restaurant, a bookshop a tatoo artist, people selling artisan crafts.... I felt like "the beach" with lots of hippies but no beach, and spacey mushroom trips to an adjacent waterfall instead of weed farmers. We stayed almost a week, playing some gigs in the rain forrest and of course we went over to
see the pyramids.

These were very different to the ones in Oaxaca and D.F. mainly because it rained this day resulting in lots of fog and clouds (yeah HDR heaven), moisquitos everywhere, and no coffea shops. Mighty pyramids of the mayans, a forgotten civilization, yeah bullshit, who do you think are the people, hanging around, selling you the scarves and blankets.... noone actually left the place. It is just that the people that used to sacrifice each other and build these amazing constructions are now sitting in their shade selling stuff to tourists.....

I might want to mention that the drive from San Christobal to Palenque is a real nightmare. We took a
a cheap second class bus, which doesnt make a difference as the street is still shit and the trip resulting in
a puke fest. Dramamine didnt do the trick either, maybe. There are some better anti sickness pills around. I would say it is very tight race between of shit trips between Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido and this one. I would say the first one wins, just because of the horrible music. As if there was a special CD for taxi drivers in Mexico, including all the disco pop crap that didnt make it into the radio. Painful!

But this was only one pyramid in the jungle, the other one was Tikal in the north of Guatemala. I had my doubts about crossing the boarder, checking the thorntree forums, asking around etc, but in the end it couldnt be easier. Jump in a shuttle bus, drive to the river, get into a little boat, get out, change money into pretzels... I mean quetzales, jump into another bus and get off in Flores, which simply is amazing. A little
island in a beautiful lake, with lovely girls smiling at you, cheap pasta, cheaper hostels in a beuatiful landscape. We took a taxi to Tikal, which I can only describe as the place of awesomness. Yes, the entry price of 150Q is a bit steep but for that you get pyramids and temples for days.

Most people take a tour, that starts at 4 am..... whatever! I got there at ten all the early birds going back to
Flores again, leaving the entire place for me and a few other people. I ran around for hours, climbing up every single temple, on one I found a military squad with machine guns... yay! but of course there are some more harmless individuals around,very colourful turqueys, monkeys hanging out in the trees, throwing nuts at you, cleary not howlermonkeys, as I hear they shit on you to defend their territory, what the fuck!

And then there were these weird things, that look like miniature versions, of dinosaurs constantly running backwards, interesting! Tikal is one of these places where you can totally loose yourself, surely you can take a tour and learn about the many sacrifices everywhere, and how the town was built and abandonend, part of me would have loved it but again, no money and I am not geting up to get on a tour in the middle of the night. So instead I just ran around randomly, every know and then I might take a turn here and there walk through the jungle and end up on another temple.

I suppose the highlight for me was sitting on top of the canopy, letting the view fly for miles, with two more temples in the disctance. Sitting up there while the monkeys howled somewhere in the forrest. Magical!

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