Shampoo-Champagne...the travels continue.

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I belive last time I write I was in San Cristobal de las Casas. Since then the route has been...

1. Palenque

2. Flores, Guatemala

3. Shampoo-Champagne (Semuc Champay), Guatemala

4. Rio Dulce, Guatemala

5. Livingston, Guatemala (The current location)

The night we left San Cristobal more people came to populate the dormitory, which made the scary old man in the corner, who could have passed as Santa if only he had a red suit, slightly less wierd in that we didn´t have to make conversation everytime we were in there at the same time! Someone (might have been me) decided it´d be a good idea for us to bond over a drink or two so we set off to Oxxo to buy vodka and coke. Yuck, I hate vodka and coke. We got VERY drunk playing a drinking game involving driving a bus, adhering to international drinking rules (no pointing, swearing, first names, drinking with your right hand or any use of the word or any derivations of the word drink, or you have to consume your beverage!). Then we went to a bar where they were handing out free flyers for free drinks at the door, amazing! We had the free drinks, stole more vouchers off the bar and had some more. The rest of the evening is hazy. Owing to this, we travelled to Palenque rather hungover. Bummer.

We crawled off the bus in Palenque and straight into the first hotel we saw, went out for a sandwich and booked a waterfall tour for the next day. Then I went to sleep. In the morning we moved house from the fisrt convenient hotel in Palenque town (which incidentally is a very nice Mexican town, it has the appropriate amount of shoe shops and internet cafes for me to feel at home there) and moved out to the jungle by Palenque ruins to sleep in the wild, in HAMMOCKS! Especially for the hammock venture I had decided the time was ripe for me to purchase my hammock, so I bought a single one, after all I am only one person and not THAT large. Unfortunately when it was put up (by a man who knew special hammock knots) I barely fit into it and there was no way I´d be able to sleep in it....so I had to go back and buy another, this time a double hammock. This one was better. The man reccomended double hammocks for sleeping, single are only good for resting. Although now my heart is yearning after a family hammock, my head is saying no because the two hammocks I already have are not light in my backpack! (I even considered cutting the labels out of my clothes to save weight then decided that was plain silly.)

So back to the hammocks, the second one I tied myself. I had worried about this not really knowing any guiding knots, only a bow and a reef knot, then I realised I knew the perfect hammock tying knot, a quick release knot! If it can hold a horse it can hold me! So I, myself (I´m very proud) secured my own hammock and then Sarah´s, then Angie tried to put hers up. It was a nice pink and purple one that she´s bought in San Blas more for asthetics than anything. It´s a damn good job she´d only bought it for asthetics because it didn´t even fit across our hammock shelter to the hammock hooks on the other side...lucky I had two! (ahahaha!)

We only had one moment when we thought we were going to be eaten by something in the wild, that was on the second night. We were laying in our hammocks, all nicely lit with the candles we´d bought to make the hammock hut homely when we heard a growling that sounded like a bear and a shadow went over Angie....she screamed and tried to vacate the hammock, not so easy when you´ve got a mozzie net and a sleeping bag liner holding you in, but we realised it was in fact Sarah who´d falled to sleep and was snoring!

Palenque ruins...the very reason we were there. To be fair we probably didn´t do the wise thing going at mid day. It was the sweatiest place I´d ever been up to that point in my life. It was horrible. The ruins were very nice and ruiny, the jungle nice and jungly. We climbed one ruin and went in a tomb, then decided to go back to our jungle abode and swim in the pool. Lovely!

Next stop Guatemala, we had to leave super early to get in the minibus going to the border at 6am. We thought we´d get away with stealing the hired (family) hammocks at the sacrifice of Sam´s railcard which he´d used as deposit but we weren´t in luck! The actual border crossing wasn´t actually that interesting, although now I have 3 passport stamps yey! And we went in a boat across the river which serves as the actual border.

We stayed in Flores a couple of nights, didn´t go to Tikkal, being all ruined out we just couldn´t face another one. Instead we went to the beach! It was more of a rocky lake shore, but we layed in the sun and swam in the lake. Sam the silly arse didn´t put any sun cream on. It´s nearly a week later and he´s still BRIGHT red like a letter box and peeling and scabbing. His burn got infected and got pussy so we had to take him to a chamist yesterday where they all came out for a look! Boots should use him to sell suncream. Seriously the sight would make you never go in the sun ever again, unfortunately he wont be persuaded to let us photograph the monstrosity that is his chest and upper back so nobody will know the full hilarity of the situation. (Obviously caring sister and friends care very much, we DID take him to the chemist twice but it is really funny!)

Speaking to people about Guatamala, they all reccomended a place called Semuc Champay, just remember shampoo! So we decided to make the trip up into the mountains and found a minibus to take us all the way there. It took ALL day but it was SOOO worth it. I really loved it, it was so beautiful. We stayed in a little hut in a hotel in the forest right by the national park and went on a guided tour into the park with practically all the other hotel guests the next day.

First stop on the tour was the mirador, we climbed UP through the trees quite a way. Sarah and I were last. We can´t understand how everyone else hot footed it up there. It was VERY sweaty but at the top the view of the pools was amazing. They were SO blue. Looking forward to jumping in we set off back down. This was the worst hour of my life. This was also the most sweaty time of my life too. I think I cried but my face was so sweaty I couldn´t really tell. Sarah and I were last! And the more we walked the less far we seemed to get. Again everyone else went bounding up but I´ve developed a deep distrust of my legs and felt like Bambi! Then we had to walk through mum and my flip flops got very sweaty and kept parting company with my feet so I had to take them off and go barefoot rather than fall off the mountain!

We did eventually get to the bottom and got to swim! It was sooo nice! Then the crazy tour guide rounded us all up and we conducted a jumping/diving/sliding down waterfalls tour of the pools right to the end where the water rejoined the river by a waterfall. At this point he got out a rope ladder, looped it round a big rock in the water at the top and we all climbed down. Good job the rock didn´t move. As we were climbing over a narrow slippery rocky ledge into a cave under a waterfall dressed in our bikinis or swim shorts and nothing at all more Angie remarked on the unlikeliness of this happening EVER in the UK or US. The tour guide came in last, looked down from the rock the 4 or 5 meters to the swirling river and said "No, we won´t jump today". We thought he was joking but then he let the crazier people jump off the other side of the rock into the river. No-one died. I think it was a miracle.

Later on we went tubing down the river in inner tubes. At first we went all together, joined like a big caterpillar with our feet under the person in front´s armpits. The he let us go free and just as we were approaching a big waterfall announced we steer to the left and get out in like 2 meters. Well I couldn´t steer or stop so I had to grab onto a big tree trunk and wait for him to save me! I actually thought I was going to die. It was so embarassing. Still no-one died, again! Haha!

Having avoided death several times we decided to come to the beach on the way to Belize, so we got a minibus 5 or 6 hours (it took 10) to Rio Dulce, stayed there a couple of nights, visited another waterfall - this one had a cold pool and HOT WATER coming down the waterfall. Don´t ask me how because I don´t understand. But I´d almost forgotten what it was to have a hot shower! On the way home we went to stand by the road and wait for a bus to come past. Sarah and I went to change out of our bikinis but Angie and Miguel (an American guy we´ve been travelling with) were waiting still in theirs (well Angie was, Miguel in his shorts) when a bus came past.

"Are you going to Rio Dulce?"
"No" (They start taking photos of Angie with their phones and have a bit of a discussion.
"Actually...yes we are."
"Great, thanks! Just hold on whilst I go for my friends."

So we got on the bus, which I´m sure was full of drunk or stoned or overly hyper people apparently on a work trip. There was a riot of laughter when we got on and none of the men would let Miguel sit next to them...I managed to get a seat next to a little girl. The atmosthere calmed somewhat and all was going well until we stopped and bus bus turned off it´s engiene in a place that was not Rio Dulce! We´d been kidknapped to a castle! Argh! It was a very nice castle, right by the water, and it had a room that was knee deep in water which was impossible to see so we didn´t know till Sam stepped into it in his trainers.

Well at least the bus which kidknapped us didn´t charge us, so when we got bored of the castle we found a combi back to Rio Dulce for 3q´s. We´d got to see the castle, get home and practically saved money compared to paying 25q´s to get there. Result!

Today we are in Livingston, reachable only by boat, so I´m told, and that was the way in which we arrived! It´s by the sea!! Woo! And it´s really chilled out and pretty. I had some kind of sea creature soup, which was actually quite scary, for lunch and the hostel is showing the Sex and the City Movie later! Sam will be wearing suncream and winter clothes to go on the beach tomorrow. And on Tuesday we´re going to Belize to check out the lobsters there. Yummy. AND I haven´t lost my magic Visa card, which I thought I had. Which is a good job because nobody else´s cards work here so I´m having to be the bank of Lizzie, I just keep thinking how rich I´m going to be when we go back to Mexico and they repay me!

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Photos

Cold Pool, Hot Waterfall
Magic

Central America's Longest Bridge
Maybe

Shampoo-Champagne!
Look how pretty it is!

Then we jumped...
Just kidding

Palenque
Ruiny Ruiny