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Published: June 29th 2011
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Random pic.. sort of... it's just that there's a moth (I still think it's a butterfly) plastered against the sign so I took a pic... ^^; Huzzah! Home sweet San Cristobal 😊 But first... a recounting of the journey between point A (hotel), B (Palenque), and C (San Cristobal).
We had to be up early to pack up and be ready to hop onto our transports the second they arrive. Breakfast was just like dinner last night... I had the misfortune of once again being among the first to be there, last to be served.
I got dethroned from one of the best spots on the van because another classmate (I guess) decided for a change to have a back seat corner and she had reached the van before I did (obviously). It made the ride back a nightmare because I didn't want to be sleeping on either of them, but I did end up awkwardly sleeping on some of my classmate's stuff. That was the best I could do...
Palenque has to be my most favourite ruins site to visit out of the few that we visited. We didn't have to do a lot of intense uphill climbing to reach parts of it, a number of locations that didn't have too many stairs to climb, and there were plenty
Tomb of the Red Queen
The outside of course :) of ruins to look at. Also, there was plenty of shaded areas, and our guide was pretty funny. For example, when we were at a site that had a lot of stairs to climb, some of us stayed on ground level and watched. The guide would climb about half way, turn around and shout down, "This is good excercise!!" Thanks but no thanks Mr. Guide 😊 I've had enough walking in a few days than I had for many months ;o
The first place we visited was the Tomb of the Red Queen; The body of course wasn't there, and the inside of the coffin was colored red. (After doing some research, I found that the body itself was red because of cinnabar, a red colored mineral. I assume that's how the body got the nickname 'red queen'.)Another place that I remember the name of is called Temple of the Sun, of which I took a picture of that I'm rather proud of. These places have such simple, but epic names in my opinion.
On the Palace, the last location we visited, we found an iguana. Well, someone else outside the group saw it first and
word spread. This I took a picture of because I just think iguanas are awesome, and it was camouflaged.
After the last location, the guide bid us goodbye and we splintered into smaller groups, some heading for the end, some browsing the wares that people were selling. There was once nice carving with a jaguar on it that I was tempted to buy, but I knew mom would probably ask me why I bought it when it will just collect dust, which I would have to say would have been true (not really much I can do with it but sit it for display).
Heading to the exit took us across a small rope bridge past, a small waterfall to the right. Since I was early to the exit, I headed into the gift shop where, of course, I was tempted to spend some pesos there too. Chocolaaaaate...
The ride back to San Cristobal was long and tedious... I almost went crazy. It didn't help that I badly wanted to sleep, which was hard to when I'm not that comfortable sleeping on someone else (that isn't a guy. -cough- well, at the very least,
THE Tomb of the Red Queen
Where the body was buried one who's a friend... tempting as it may to rest against a stranger, I wouldn't do it :P). Also, I was clock watching, which didn't help.
There were a lot of speed bumps the whole way back, which made the driving much slower than I liked (I understand why there's speed bumps, but I am sure they don't need speed bumps every single foot of the road ). At one point, our van made a stop and I thought we were breaking for lunch or something. No... apparently the other vehicle with the rest of the group got stopped by the military for a check. I must confess I was disappointed that I had to miss out, considering the fact that I would have been psyched about it. I have strange tastes in 'excitement'.
About 2 hours before we reached San Cristobal, we had the a/c off (not sure why), which made the rest of the trip very uncomfortable. I just wanted to kiss the ground when we got back.
On arrival, we once again spilled out at a location that wasn't blocking traffic, and this time... we
Temple of the Inscriptions
-sigh- So... apparently they blocked this site off to the public because too many people traversed up and into the temple... some of my classmates who've been here before have been up there. Jealous... were split into two hotels. "Wait, what?" you ask? Well, my coordinator had things set up so that the bunch that were going home or out of San Cristobal would be staying at our old hotel, while the few of us that were sticking around were staying at a different hotel (well, there were a few odd ones out that stayed at the same hotel as us).
When me and my now roommate checked out our room, she tripped out because it was a single double bed and she didn't want to have to sleep in the same bed as me. She said no offense but I knew how she felt because I didn't like the idea of that happening any more than she did. So, we got a room change, and the receptionist at the time was nice enough to help carry our stuff up into our room. I plopped down on my bed on my back after I had my luggage brought up and he came asking if I was tired. Yup. Long hours of butt-sitting can do that to you...
Since it was our last night together as a group, we had it
arranged that we will have one last meal together at a pizza shop (of all places in Mexico, hahaha). Sadly, our stranded classmate didn't make it, or at least when I was there. I had to leave early because I was starting to get a real bad case of the cramps and besides, the pizza wasn't the greatest (well, at least I wasn't a fan of the type that they ordered). My former neighbour was nice enough to walk me to the hotel which, because of the major cramps, seemed like a mile away when it was only a couple blocks away. Owwww....
Going to be fun trying to sleep tonight with major cramps...
~Kedi~
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