And on to the Yucatan

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We said goodbye to San Christobal at some ungodly hour of the morning, and set off for Palenque, the first of our Mayan ruins.

The road was hilly, windy and full of speed bumps on the strangest stretches of road. Beside each was a group of children that would jump up and try to sell us coconuts, fruit, chewing gum etc.

We stopped off for a swim at Agua Azul, and admired the waterfall at Misol-ha before arriving at the ruins at about 2pm.

We decided to get a guide in order to understand the place a bit better. I´m not sure what we received was the standard speel or not, but it was interesting nonetheless. Our guide had a theory that the Mayans were really a mix of lots of different cultures - Chinese, Phoenecians, Egyptians, etc, all of which had arrived in Central America by boat. He showed us the jaguar heads which he thought were actually chinese dragons. We spent a good half an hour in a plaza while he pointed out all the jewish symbolism of the various facades. It was quite possibly our hottest day yet, and we could only spend moments in the direct sunlight before dashing to the shade and skulling more water. I think me and Ben drank something like 6 litres between us over 2 hours there. I am the sweat monkey.

We stayed out by the ruins in what can best be described as ´rustic´accommodation. We had a fan that was casually attached to the mains via two live wires. Unfortunately, our roommate tried to move the fan closer to the beds and one of the wires fell loose. We spent a stifling night under our mosquito net with no fan. At 2am I was woken by two ladies having a bit of a fight. They were screaming in hysterical Spanish and slapping each other between being restrained by some drunk mexicans. Ben didn´t wake at all - I think he was unconscious.

We moved on to Campeche, an old fortified city on the coast. Campeche seems to sit in some kind of wind vaccuum, and during the day the concrete streets would bake. We visited a fake beach and went for a walk around the city walls for something to do. Ben went for a jog in the evening, and must have sweated every drop of water from his body. He frantically jumped in the shower, only to find the water coming out of the cold tap was hot. It took him quite a few hours and several litres of water to cool down.

We scheduled a stop in Merida. This was nice, but not quite as well kept as Campeche. There had just been some elections, and the whole town was celebrating with salsa music and dancing. Ben decided to get sick, so we spent a day reading and watching geckos eat mosquitos.

Next was a trip to Chichen Itza, a new wonder of the world and our second Mayan site. This place was pretty cool, though overrun by tourists on a day trip from Cancun. A big thunderstorm was raging a few kilometres away, making the air heavy and charged. We got lost and ended up in some hotel. On our way back to the van we found an entire section that we had somehow missed. Our fellow travellers were not happy when we arrived back half an hour late - not least our German friend Eliza who had got there ten minutes early!

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Photos

Agua Azul
Nice spot for a swim