Palenque Mexico

---

Palenque

We caught a bumpy ferry from Cozumel to Playa del Carman where Karen went a pretty shade of green, then directly onto a 13hr overnight bus journey, (where Marcel was convinced an old man smelled of wee and kept him awake all night) Karen slept like a baby!
We stayed at Edd and Margarita's a hotel in the jungle on the border of the national park and could hardly sleep as the crickets were so loud but so beautoiful and then in the morning we were woken at 5am by what sounded like a dinosaur, as the howler monkeys said good morning with a huge roar that fills the jungle!!! We Went for a walk into the national park and were lucky enough to see a toucan (like the guiness adverts!) apparently really rare,(the hotel owner Margarita has only seen one in three years it flew right past us at a waterfall we had discovered where we were totally alone. We were walking back mesmarised by the leaf cutter ants when we were offered Hongo's, Karen realy wanted some, thinking they would be cooked up in a cream sauce on toast, but they were more of the magic mushroom kind! Karen;s so naive sometimes! Who needs them when you can watch leaf cutter ants for half an hour without them!
Catching a collectivo (shared minibus) we headed for the Palenque Ruinas; a Mayan Dynasty (600AD onwards) religous and royal site covering 15 square km's and set in jungle hills. We walked for hours in hot sunshine, up and down the huge ruined temples, (and of course the best bit : the Mayan ball courts-football pitches. We listend in to guides interpretations (for free) and really enjoyed the day, but really it seems there is little evidence of how Mayan people really lived and worshiped and everything is open to interpretation.
After a long day with tired legs we went to Palenque town, a few km's away and ate coconut helados, delicious. (homemade icecream) and marcel had a cheaper and manky strawberry lolly which he threw away. Wasting all of 10p.
In the evening we ate diner outside under a palm thatched roof listening to good live Cuban music and drinking corona's with lime and salt and generally thinking the world is a good place..........we commented on how our Spanish was improving, now able to understand most of the menu.... Marcel realised that the taco's he ate at a taqueria in Cozumel were brains, tongue and intestines....we're still learning!! He said at the time it tasted a bit weird and added more salsa picante

---

Photos

Our own secret waterfall
Where we saw the rare toucan.