..And there we go with the safe-traveling rules again.. :p
A shower will probably feel great now, and so will food..
At the morning we woke up without any bigger problems and jumped into the van that would take us to Palenque and to the Misul-Ha and Agua Azal waterfalls.
It was just 200km to Palenqua, which wouldnt have been far if the roads were decent. The narrow road climbed up and down the mountains with slow trucks blocking the road all the time. After 3 hours of traveling we had some breakfast at a roadside restaurant, once again ordering the food by guessing.. The spanish menus suck. The chicken was quite good though. :)
An hour more of driving and we reached the Agua Azal waterfalls and spent there a while, taking photos and enjoying the views. The waterfalls were relatively small, maybe the highest one was 10-15 meters, but there were many of them and they were still quite impressing. Some local people were swimming in the river and sunbathing on the shores, we got a few pictures of each other in middle of the river with camera gear also. Searching for the best shooting angle sometimes requires sacrifices.. :)
Maybe 50 kilometers more, and we reached the Mayan ruins at Palenque. Palenque is basically at the sea level altitude, so the climate is totally different from the mountain climate of San Cristobal: Extremely hot and humid. The air felt like being in a sauna when we walked in the jungle, and our clothes were wet in matter of minutes. We observed a group of howler monkeys yelling on trees while walking through the archeological site. Mayans seemed to love stairs just as much as the Aztecs, unfortunatly...
The ruins itself were not as impressive as the Aztec ones at Teotichuacan, but the count made up what the ruins lost in size. There was hundreds of ruined buildings scattered in the jungle, and more of them are found and undercovered all the time.
After 2 hours of walking we are now returning back to San Cristobal. By the way, the mobile phone coverage seems to be fairly limited. My phone can see the network only in the centrum of Palenque, everywhere else there was no network available.
Anyway, we decided to get something done instead of just hanging around at the hostel and in the city, and visiting Canõn del Sumidero today sounded like a good idea. The dutch girls from our room were also going there today, but they were using the arranged trip offered by the hostel. That would have been too easy, as always we just have to do everything the hard way breaking all the safe-traveling rules.. :p
We walked to the main outgoing street of the city and picked a random crappy local bus that took us to Tuxtla Gutierrez. The ride was a bit bumpy and uncomfortable and we were the only Europeans in the bus, but eventually we got to Tuxtla. Unfortunately we didnt jump out of the bus in time, and the final destination of the bus line was well outside the city centrum. Blah, our feet got some work to do again..
An hour of walking in the really hot air of Tuxtla, and we were at the city centrum. Grabbed some food, a steak and tacos, and found a tourist information center where we went asking how to get to the Canõn del Sumidero. A guy from the tourist information center offered to drive us to the place for a very reasonable price of about 2 euros. 5 minutes later we were sitting in his car, in the chaotic traffic. 10 minutes more and we jumped to a speedboat departing towards the canyon.
The boat trip through the canyon and back took about two hours, during which we got to see some of the most unbelievably scenery I have seen so far. The stone walls raised to 1 kilometer height around us while we raced through the canyon, with the help of two 200hp Yamaha V6 engines.
Theres a rich animal population in the canyon, but unfortunately we didnt get to see too many of them. An ape was climbing on a tree, a crocodile laying at the beach and playing dead and a horde of vultures spending time at the shoreline.
After the boat trip we climbed back to the road, and a bus going to San Cristobal stopped there just at the right moment. The driver waited a minute for us, we jumped in the bus and drove back to San Cristobal.
Today there will be a Couchsurfing meeting in San Cristobal, celebrating the St.Patrics day of the Irish. So, now to a shower and then to the party place..
Sorry, no pictures yet.. Ill add more of them later :)
Its 10.20pm local time now, the other people are going to sleep and the fire is dying, so I guess we are going to the city with Timo, just to have one beer in a bar or something and check out the nightlife of the city.
At the hostel there should be a fireplace lighted up later, so we bough a few beers and a bottle of tequila and returned to the hostel. The nights here seem to be cold, its already a bit chilly while the sun is setting down. Some dark clouds are gathering on the sky, so we might get some rain at night...
Btw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MwqPrvpfNM is from last night :)
... And the network connection of the hostel sucks. I guess the WLAN router is feeling a bit sick.. I have to arrange an accidental reboot for it when I find the box, or then Timo will apply his professional skills to it. ( And he is a working with explosives... )
The bus trip took a bit over one hour, and we found ourself in the beatiful city of San Cristobal. The city seems to be colourful and old, and full of life although feeling like.. Relaxed. A great place for chilling a few days. The hostel looks great also :)
A cup of coffee, a few games of Hedgewars and we were already landing to Tuxtla Gutierrez. The landing wasnt so smooth as the plane was small, but.. Not too bad either.
Surprisingly from our European viewpoint they were flying with cockpit door open. Not much terrorist threats around here I guess.
Right now we are sitting at Tuxtlas small and nice looking airport, thinking how to get to San Cristobal de las Casas from here. I guess we will find a way :)
The climate in here is warmer than in Mex City, should be over 30C. The air is clean and moisture level is high, its feeling like being in a greenhouse with the palmtrees growing all around us :)
We will be flying with Mexicana Click, a Mexican airline. The average age of their Fokker 100 fleet is around 18 years, so lets see how comfortable the flight will be.. :)
