Well we
made it out of Manhattan, down to Cancun. got out of Cancun as fast as we
could, and by evening were in a little hostel close to the beach side ruins in
Tulum, about as far as you can get from the "1 tequila 2 tequila 3 tequila
floor" t-shirts of Cancun, and still be in the Yucatan. The next few days
we just went round a couple of different Mayan ruins at Tulum and Coba, chilled
out on the beach and like all good English people - got sun burnt! We decided
that perhaps we needed to give our white / pink skin a rest so headed inland to
the Chiapas region and Palenque.
Well we
got the break from the sun we were looking for, it rained for the first 12
hours we were in Palenque.... Not wanting to let a little water stop us, we
decided to still explore the local ruins (yes ruins will be a theme for a while!).
They were pretty amazing, but we could not have gotten wetter if we had stood
under a power shower for 2 hours.... The next day we dried out before heading
off to check out some local waterfalls and take a cooling a dip in the rivers (the
sun had come back out by now) - see the photos. After 2 days off ruins it was
time to feed the addiction, so we headed to Yaxchilan and Bonampak. The river
trip to Yaxchilan was pretty cool, crocodiles aside, and the ruins were amazing
- completely isolated in the jungle 'Indiana Jones' style! That evening we
stayed in a 'Mayan village', our accommodation was basically a wooden shed, and
the chicken we had for dinner had been running around the garden when we had
arrived!!
The next
day we set off for the border by boat. Only trouble was they fitted 13 of us
and our bags into 1 basically oversized kayak. The water wasn't quite coming
over the edge but it was very close! Having arrived in Guatemala still dryish
and without loosing our bags, we piled onto the bus and bumped off down the
unpaved roads to Flores....
