Chiapas, México

June 21, 2006

I just wanted to send a quick email letting you know
what has been going on the last few days. We spent a
few days on the beach and then headed to Chiapas to
pick up two friends on the way to San Cristobal de las
Casas. SC de las Casas is a cute little town and most
of the population is indigenous. It was great to see
all the people in the local dresses. The women
carried their babies slung around on their chest tied
with a scarf. The houses and the little shops are very
colourful. We spent two days there and then headed to
Palenque. Palenque is on of the most important Mayan
archaeological sites in Mexico. The ruins are
beautifully set in the jungle. We slept in Cabins
about 2km from the ruins in the jungle. It was
awesome. We also went and saw a waterfall, called Agua Azul, and went
swimming. It was nice and refreshing,
since it is so hot and humid here. The next day we
left and went to two other Mayan ruins. We had to
take a bus to a boat on the river that divides
Guatemala and Mexico to get to the ruins. The first
ruins, Yaxchitlan, were not as spectacular but they
were more in the jungle, so we were eaten alive by
mosquitoes. I also got bit by fire ants and we saw toads, frogs, centipedes, and heard and saw howler monkeys, which funny enough sounds more like lions than monkeys.

Then we went to a smaller
ruin, Bonampak, which still has its original wall
paintings. Pretty incredible considering that it
dates back to 600 AC. We slept in a pretty rustic hut
but you could also hear the monkeys and there were
lots of creepy crawlies around. Then this morning we
got on a bus, where we had our second snake sighting
(thank god I was on the bus because it was huge). We
got back on our boat and went about 30mins up stream
to the Guatemalan border. We took a beat up bus on a
bumpy dirt road about two hours and then the last hour
on a paved road to Flores. We are now here. It is a
cute little town which is surrounded by a lake on
three sides. It is very expensive though. I am
assuming that only the international tourist can
afford this. We will be going to the ruins of Tikal
tomorrow and staying in El Remate tomorrow night. We
heard Guatemala was cheaper than México but I think
Flores is excluded.