Hotel Mayab Flores

... climbing our last temple we chilled out had some beers before heading back to our bus which would take us back to Flores.

That evening was very quiet since the hostel is mainly geared to Tikal day trips there are many people getting up for the early morning tours. Due to this and the fact that there was not much else to do in town, the hostel pretty much died after 10pm. I got an early night in preparation for my trip the next day to Lanquin.

... ride out here we did get to swim in a sweet hot
spring right of the Logo de Izabal (the largest lake in Guatemala) and
saw a coral snake shortly after getting out of the water. The local
culture informed us that if bitten we could potentially be dead within
6 minutes, which I would like to wiki to check the facts.

My
Spanish is horrific and I'm totally embarrassed to be in a Spanish
speaking country and only be able to speak to the locals with a two
year old ...

... strong.

The crowning glory of the trip was climbing Temple IV and looking out over the jungle. It was jungle in all directions, with only the tips of a few of the other temples breaking the green sea. This was the king of Mayan ruins, this was something else.

Practicalities

* You don't have to wake with the rooster at 5am. Buses leave every hour up to midday.

* Bring a big bottle of water with you ...

... housing men and women of Shamanistic inclination. Host and wine discarded for fizzy drinks and candles dyed in the four colours of local maize, placed in careful order and lit with superstitious intent. Monotheism replaced with the worship of the Saints and their individual attributes to assist in all manner of obstacle, from the finding of lost souls to car keys. Eschewing the harsh, often invasive methods of western diagnostics, proponents of the old way rely ...

Got the early bus out of Palenque and had a quick 5 hour bus ride to San Cristobal, in the mountains of Mexico. We have spent the day here and it is beautiful. It is full of churches and really nice buildings, there is a fantastic market and the people are really nice. Mexico is reminding us more and more of Bolivia and we are loving it. For those of you who have never seen or heard of piñatas before, they are ...

San Cristobel de la Casas is located about 2100 m above sea level. It is another pretty Colonial town with lots of churches. This town I will especially remember for one thing. Bloody fire works. They let them off constantly. It is like living in a war zone. I am sure the doctors surgeries a full with shell shocked Mexicans. It is hard to know why they do ...

... came back being lazy most of the rest of the day. We had some good cheese and nopales (cactus fruit) tacos for lunch at Salsa Verde on the pedestrian walkway by the main plaza and then I had a yummy gelato at the place across the street from Salsa Verde and Aron had a treat when we visited the bakery. We are off tomorrow at 6AM for Palenque. Too early for my taste! Along the way we´ll stop to see a couple of nice waterfalls and the ruins so that should break of the 5 hour trip.

... though as i want to meet more travellers as it has been something which i have not been ablñe to do much thus far as a result of concentrating on the language. Tmmorow i think i might go back to the zapatista village wiuth my argentinian friend cristian. I need to upload some pictures on here as no one can see anything of what i have been doing i think i may do this tonight.