Ok, so i´ve got like a week to catch up... This could take a while..
Tuesday, 17th July, 2007
So today we left the orgy of spiders, lizards, frogs and insects that inhabit the El Panchan which is the kinda hotel (hmmm, hotel? im really not sure what to call it) that we stayed at for the first two nights in Palenque and moved to a hotel which was much like a hospital in the centre of Palenque..
We then took a private tour up to Yaxchilán in an Airconditioned car and then caught a boat up the river which partly borders Mexico and Guatemala.. This was quite cool.. i have no photos of this boat trip but Felix has taken literally 1000 photos of the trip so far on his SLR and i will get them off of him when we get back to Mexico city.. And we then went and sore more Mayan ruins.. These were different to the Palenque ones but just as good.. We hiked about 10 minutes through the jungle to reach them and were then presented with a pitch black hallway that we had to go through to get to the main area... Armed with only my video camera light we reluctantly went into the hallway.. We then discovered that the hallways were the home to about 100 or so bats!! Felix was taking photos and one of them decided to fly further into the hallways, Felix screamed and i took off running out of the hallways! I have it all on video camera by the way! It´s quite funny.. So after discussing if we should head back, we eventually braved the hallways and got through to the main area.. and it was quite worth it! Im sure there must have been another way to get to the main area but i think we went the hard way..
We strolled around the ruins for a couple of hours. The best part of these ruins was the biggest staircase that i have ever seen leading to a temple at the top of a hill.. This was awesome to see as we were standing at the bottom of them facing the other direction having not seen them yet and these two other guys pointed them out to us and we all turned around at the same time and gasped at the size of them.
So we then took the boat back, had lunch and then got back in the private car that was waiting to take us back to Palenque.. That was about it for that day we were all exhausted and went to bed early..
Wednesday, 18th July, 2007
Wednesday was another cool day.. We took another tour which took us from Palenque to Altamirano which is where Yvonnes cousin Edwardo is doing his social service as a doctor for a year..
On the way here we stopped at three different places.. The first was a waterfall which when we arrived i commented that it was the biggest waterfall i had seen.. i cant remember the name of but you could walk behind it and up into a cave which for $2 a guy took me on a tour through.. Inside the cave were little waterfalls and about 100 or so more bats (im not that scared of bats anymore by the way).. The second place (which i can´t remember the name of again) was this blue lake with completely clear blue water, we crossed a massive bridge to get to a little cove which was very nice..
The last place we stopped at was definately the best! It was pretty much a huge waterfall (i remember the name of this one.. it was Agua Azul) with about 20 or 30 falls that kinda reminded me of a really awesome water park! People were swimming around the falls and there were markets and restaurants every where! Unfortunately we only stayed there for 2 hours but i pretty much explored the whole area while Felix and Yvonne swum in the one area.. I kinda wish i went swimming but i got to see stuff that i wouldn´t have been able to see if i did go.. So its ok.. Ill swim at Iguazu.
We then caught the bus to Altamirano where we met up with Edwardo.. This was probably the scariest town that ive been to so far.. Its a very small poor area and i really really don´t think they get tourists very often cos everyone on the street looked at us as we walked the streets.. Nothing bad happened at all but it was a little scary at first
We went out for dinner with the people Edwardo work with at the hospital and then he took us on a tour of the small hospital which was actually quite luxurious.. When we got there we could hear a Mexican lady giving birth to a baby! It was pretty crazy, especially after about 4 or so beers! Then he took us to the new born area and when we arrived the nurse brought the baby in!! It was cool and i got a photo of the baby (after asking if it was ok first of course!)..
After this we went back to Edwardos place and drunk wine til about 4am!
Ok thats all i can be bothered writing for today! Took me about 2 hours.. Ill write some more when we get back to Mexico City in two days time!!
Chris xoxo
