Villa Mercedes Palenque

... south of Palenque. A path cut into the rockface enables visitors to walk behind the thundering cascade and literally shower in the spray of the 35 metre falls. We took a short tour through an underground river which led to a small cavernous rockpool, where more bats hung from the ceiling above us. Afterwards we returned to the base of the waterfall and swam in the cool water of the pool at the bottom. Looking up at the steep cliffs and tropical vegitation ...

... Señor! 2 more cervezas and a glass of wine por favor"<br>AUS - "did you mean to do tequilla now?"<br>JH - "No....well maybe??"<br>AUS - "Señor, 3 Tequillas por favor"<br><br>a couple of rounds followed and a very wobbly walk back through the jungle to our room.<br>Now we had planned to get up at 7 am and get on our way to the ruins to try and get around the 3 hour ish curcuit before the heat of the day kicked in.<br><br>At around 09:30am, i came to ...

... pyramid and see a little path leading into the jungle, we would follow the path and find a tiny little temple dug into some rock. We spent a long time exploring the massive sight. <br> Just like the night before, as soon as the sun went down it started raining again, from my own experiences and talking to other travellers it seems that as soon as the sun goes down in El Panchan, it starts to rain. <br><br>Saturday, 29 August, Day 218<br><br>El ...

... on the ground in front of rows and rows of candles. The floor itself is strewn with pine needles (looked like a fire hazard if you ask me) so the whole building smelt like Christmas. Next to all of the family groups are bottles of Coca Cola, which they drink. They believe that burping cleanses the soul hence the fizzy pop.... It was quite a sight, though I think we all felt quite out of place amongst it all. It was also market day in SJC so we ...

... our first dinner party that night.  We cooked up some Mole Enchiladas (just like the ones we had in Oaxaca, quite good I might add) and enjoyed them with some Coronas under the stars.  We really enjoyed the wonderful, intelligent conversation that night sharing traveling stories and tales of our countries.  It was also quite interesting to hear their views on Chavez, as they had been in Venezula a few months before.  They were quite taken with him and his ...

... with my tapaboca which now left my face completely covered i sat there rigid as tying to get some sleep with my face now sweating wildly underneath the various facial coverings... ah the joys of traveling.<br>From Villamosa we took a taxi to the nearest bus station where we got a ticket to take us to palenque but that would leave in another 2 hours, that way they was nothing more left to do but find some refuge in one of the local bars that had decent air conditioning and also a ...

... it started to absolutely **** down rain, so we had to walk back about a kilometre in hurricane like rain! But again we enjoyed it, I think the Mexicans and people hiding under trees from the rain thought we were a little mental, but I cant remember rain like that from back home, and if I can, it was definately in winter at probably 5-10 degrees so theres no way you would get to enjoy it. This was easily the best day of the trip so far. I love Palenque and the morning mist added to how good ...

... stepped pyramids like a mountain goat! In fact he liked them so much he went round twice - I sat in the shade and read on the second circuit. The museum was really interesting too - in fact we should have gone there first for a better understanding, specially as all the signs were in English as well as Spanish. Two more sites tomorrow, a night in a Mayan village and Flores on Sunday afternoon.

... the Caribbean coast to Isla Mujeres (literally 'Island of the Women'), a 12km long mass and long-time backpacker haunt. We spent two nights here, drinking beers on the beach, watching awesome sunsets and stuffing our faces with pescadillas (fish tacos - sounds gross but totally delish). We also discovered entire shops dedicated to selling some of the most ...

... to take too kindly to us as we squeezed onto the carriages with the rest of them. The metro system is very clean, very efficient and very modern. My apprehensions about pickpockets and muggers were beginning to subside when I suddenly felt my wallet leaving my pocket, as though of its own accord. I grabbed downwards and my hand gripped the hand of a smartly dressed man who was using a sports jacket draped over his arm to hide his nefarious activities. My trousers that I had bought ...