Flores - San Cristobal de las Casas

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From Flores we had a gruelling 8 hour trip to cross the Guatemalan border into Mexico and to Palenque, a small town with some mayan ruins that had been recommended. The journey, requiring a small lancha (boat) trip across the a river into Mexico, seemed to never end, and on top of that we had the feeling that "non-official" charges were being extracted from us, disheartening but I guess thats life out here, you live and learn!
We arrived in Palenque and quickly headed out of the town into El Pachan, a small group of hostals/camping areas on the way to the ruins. On our arrival we found that the places we could stay with our tent were rather limited, forcing us into an "interesting" camping spot. We decided to leave in the morning to start our walk to the ruins, only about 3km, but made more difficult by the heat, and arrived at the ruins. After seeing Tikal in Guatemala it becomes hard to not compare other ruins to them, they were beautiful and in fantastic condition but heavily crowded. One of the highlights however was some amazing waterfalls, with pools that teased (we weren´t allowed to swim!) and appeared nearly fake, the erotion of the limestone made all the edges rounded apart from the tops (the pools), hard to explain but surreal.
Having finished at the ruins we headed back into town to get a bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, a wonderful little market town at 2100m (very cold) with narrow cobbled streets nestled in a small valley. We have mainly been pottering around here, getting lost in what must be the most disorientating town I have ever been in, down steets that all look similar with mesmerising views of the mountains around from all angles. We´re undecided whether we will stay here yet another night or move back towards the Guatemalan border.
Anyway will keep you updated as to were we go.
Love to all.

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