Chiapas

OK, so spent the night in Flores and nothing much happened apart from spotting Jamie Theakston walking down the pathway outside the cafe i was sitting in. (No really, a whole film crew trailed along behind him).


Left for Mexico at 5am the next morning on a wee rickety minibus along a pot hole filled dirt track. I was half asleep the whole time but things appeared to keep falling off the underside of the van and we´d stop so the driver and the bag guy could fiddle around a bit before we set off again. The drive didn´t take long before we got to a small immagration office in the middle of nowhere, where we got our passports stamped without the man actually looking at them.

Then we got on a tiny tiny wee boat and sailed down the river for about half an hour, arriving in Mexico. Unsurprisingly, the immagration office had run out of immagration forms (at 11am) and the next 3 hours was spent explaining this to about 5 military checkpoints on the road to Palenque. Finally got them stamped in Palenque though. Driving through Chiapas was an experience. Every so often there would be a military checkpoint with ridiculous amounts of barbed wire not serving any purpose and all the Central Americans on the bus were hauled out and questioned for ages. The 3rd one we had they all got left there and we continued on along streets with about 6 million speed bumps.


So we arrived in Palenque and trudged around looking for a hostel, finally finding one near the centre. Its a nice wee town and very cheap too. Chiapas is the cheapest part of Mexico i think and the food is fantastic. I have already purchased an array of hot sauces to bring back and have been eating Tacos, Quesadillas and Burritos from street vendors. The beer has taken a turn for the worse though and its all in Britain too so no new beers to try. They have a few decent dark ones though. So it was just me and Ian and an American girl in the dorm and as it was out first night in Mexico and her last we went out and got a bit tipsy on nice tasting Tequilla (who knew that existed?). We started off in a touristy restaurant just there for the food (we had a tour leaving at 8 booked and had been up since 4) but fast forward 5 hours and we were in a sand floored Mexican cantina surrounded by singing, swaying moustached men. The only women in the place were the American girl and a rather jaded looking barmaid who appeared to apply make-up with a trowel. Needless to say she was selling more than dirt cheap beer.

My impression of Mexico was permenently shattered when the bar ran out of Tequilla and the next 2 Cantinas we found didn´t have any either.

Cue the quote "where are we staying again?", a detour to a large Mayan head statue (used as a landmark) and rattling on the little family owned hostel gates at 4am.


Needless to say my 8 am trip to the ruins at Palenque was a subdued affair but after Tikal it wasn´t as cool. It was nice though and there were lots more smaller Temples all near each other and the Subscriptions were really cool. Then we went to a huge waterfall used in the filming of Terminator 3 (or some other film i can´t remember) and then onto Agua Azul waterfalls for a swim. Apparently there are lots of minerals in the water there and we all now have good luck. On the way back to the town we were sat up next to the driver in the front of the minibus and he became the 4th person to tell me i look like Prince Harry or an unnamed member of the Royal Family (must be the rosey cheeks). So he turned out to be quite the character and told me all about Mexico on the hour back, stopping only to pull off psychopathic overtaking manoeuvers before turning to me with an ear to ear smile that said ´yes i did just do that, wasn´t it fun?.´

We drove through an ´autonomous zone on the way that was alledgedly held by the Zapatistas. Didn´t see any sign of any though. They were probably all off somewhere talking about shoes or something. There were, however, loads of stalls selling Zapatista dolls and leftest t-shirts being lapped up by young travellers.


So now i am completely shattered having not recovered from ´The Hammock Incident.´


Tomorrow we are off to San Cristobal De Las Casas which is supposed to be a very nice colonial town. I am going to buy lots of Tequila and some Mexican football shirts. After that we are off back into Guatemala to Xela and then onto Chichicastenango for the famous Mayan market on Sunday.





Calum

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