Palenque and San Cristobal de las Casas
Hello people,
Thanks for the comments (I mean mainly for the French guys reading in english ´cause it seems that none of our English-speaking acquaintances is willing to leave any comment. I wonder if they even check the blog...). Sorry No2 (Jean-michel debark) I won´t make it for lunch today at mum´s. I´ll do my best to catch a plane soon and be there for yummy homemade "galettes". I´m also happy to hear (or should I say "read") that our mummies (not the ones in the pyramids!) will feed us for such a cheap price. In the end we might not stay in Mexico for ever...
Ok, back to our story. Do you remember the great tour we found? That was yesterday. We visited the amazing Palenque ruins in the middle of the Mexican rain forest. They are veeery impressive. The site is huge and includes many temples, pyramids and even a tomb which a Mexican archeologist found quite recently. We saw huge butterflies, big spiders and even howler monkeys producing this terrifying scream that echoes in the forest. Wwoooo ! (well, written it´s not so impressive but I assure you I had goosebumps). We spent 4 hours visiting the ruins with a funny Asian-Canadian finance teacher, who worked in La Sorbonne and in various prestigious universities in Canada and the States. He gave us tips for our future job inteviews. Then we headed towards the waterfalls of Misol-Ha. The water is cristal clear and you also have access to a cave behind the waterfalls. Our next stop was in the sunny "pueblo" of Aguas Azules where we spent 3 hours. Again, some beautiful waterfalls, loads of banana-trees, orchids and humming birds. We also found a good restaurant. Heaven on earth...Just before we got on the bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, we met a Korean man, traveling for 3 years! I though 4 months was a lot, but 3 years...He´s seen it all: Europe, Canada, the States, most of Asia and now Mexico. Brave man.
We arrived in San Cristobal at 9:00 p.m after a chaotic 3 hour trip across the mountain and found a nice
hotel for the night. We actually took the second one we found, too tired to bother checking them all. This morning we took the time to review the other hotels, only to realise that the one we had taken the day before was the best value for money. However, as we´re still a bit short on our budget, we changed for a cheaper one, although not as good as the other one. We had a Mexican breakfast: coffee with tacos and eggs with red hot chili pepper and then bought our bus tickets to Mazunte. That´s for the day after tomorrow. Mazunte is a laid-back beach town, 11 hours away, where I plan to sunbathe, swim, eat and sunbathe a bit more. But that´s not for now. We wandered a bit in the streets of San Cristobal and I must say that it´s a gorgeous town. The houses are painted in bright colors (a bit like Galway...) in colonial style. It has narrow cobbled streets and a few "plazas" where you can sit and enjoy the sun.
Tonight, we´ll meet with "Papou", Carole´s daddy who´s on a tour too. I think he´s staying in San Cristobal for 2 nights, so we´ll have some time to go to the restaurant and be updated on what´s happening in Europe. Tomorrow, we´ll check the surroundings, we were told about some traditional indian villages and a zoo. I´ll tell you about that later. Bye for now !