mexico and guatemala

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Day 1
arrived in Villahermosa after flight, and stayed at hotel Cencali, and met mike our excellent guide, who is an anthropologist. We woke up the next morning and went to a park, that holds artifacts from the first mayan culture and saw howler monkeys, jaguars, really cool birds, alligators, these little racoon looking things that followed us around, and two mexican girls asked to take a pictures with all of us crazy americans. I quickly learned how to say agua purificado por favor (purified water)
Day 2
Travelled to Palenque, the first of the mayan sites, with incredible temples where these people actually lives 2,000 years ago, and made sacrifices to the Gods, we began to learn to read the language they left us in their hyeroglyphs. In Palenque, we stayed in these really neat huts in the middle of the jungle, where the archaeologists who first discovered the mayan site once stayed. There is one restaurant, called Don Muchos, which is like the cool place to hang out in the middle of the village. This is where we quickly learned how to speak spanish words and the exchange rate from us to pesos.
On the way home from the mayan site to where we were staying we saw policia with machine guns readily available. We also began to realize that wherever you go, there are beggers selling everything from jewelry to mayan statues, even kids as young as 5 walking around selling thins.
Day3
strenous hike up a mountain at the palenque mayan site to see howler monkeys right above us. We ran into a famous archaelogist that once excavated the site we were at, and is friends with our guide Mike. He gave us a quick lesson on mayan geometry and how the mayans incorporate the geometry into the building of their temples.
Day 5
We travel to stay with the indigenous mayan people two hours from Palenque, We go through a militiary checkpoint with men carrying machine guns around. We stop and have breakfast at what appears to be a mexican home, and right outside of the home is a hut where they feed us eggs with tomoatos, rice, and a few other things. The seats were made out of tree stumps. We then leave, while driving see people cleaning their clothing in the river. The driver, Javier, who knows everyone in Mexico, puts Charlie Chaplin in the vcr. Once we arrive to the Lacandon village, we see that it truly is a village, like something out of the movies, we stay in huts again. We took a nature trail, where a Mayan woman showed us various plants and trees that they use for herbal remedies. After the hike, we swam in the most beautiful area with small waterfalls all around us.
Day 6
We leave the Mayan Village and go to Bonampak, a mayan ruin site not far away. This is by far the most peaceful site. with incredible views.
We then leave and go to Frontera Corozal, a border town and eat lunch there. We then get into these really cool boats with straw roofs and travel down the river. We then get out of the boat and literally walk into Guatemala, leaving Mexico. There are little children offering to carry our bags up a little hill and begging for pesos. We get into two vans for our transport into Flores, Guatemala. On the way we see a cemetary where adults and children we buried that were killed in the Guatemala guerilla warfare 20 years ago, our breaths are taken away, and we realize that complaining about the non paved road, is not necessary. We arrive in Flores, a beautiful city on a huge lake, with atm´s, internet, hot water, cable, and power. We have very nice rooms, and are in civilization for the first time in almost a week.
We will stay in Flores for two days.

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