Week Dos

Day 7: Sunday, July 8, 2012

Still in Macusfuckingspana.  But the car was finished today, so booyah.  We headed out to Palenque around two or so and it started raining pretty darn hard, so we were able to enjoy the ruinas without too many people/distractions.  They are pretty freaking awesome.  After taking in all that Palenque’s ruins had to offer (at least, until it closed), we headed to a tiny cascada super nearby, then checked in to a hostel (Hostal Elementos Naturales) very nearby (in the park)—it featured cabanas and was pretty cool, though internetless.  Abraham and I set out to find some brews, but the nearest neighbors didn’t have alchy for sale or were culieros.  After a little while we headed to some restaurant owned by an Italian-Mexican and dined—I had a calzone that was quite good.  While there we caught a pretty sweet fire dancing show and then kicked it with Mono Blanco for a ratito.  Wink face.

Day 8: Monday, July 9, 2012

Woke up late due to the standard heat and humidity of the rain forest jungle.  Set out and had an absolutely gorgeous drive to San Cristobal de las Casas, which is an hour away from the capital of Tuxtla and situated just about in the center of the state of Chiapas.  Also, it’s probably my favorite place in Mexico.  The climate changed a great deal—we made our way through forests and mountains and finally happened upon this delightful little colonial mountain village which featured a far more deciduous feel and look.  The city is very “cool” and a little “artsy” and many Euro travelers seem to like it, but that couldn’t hinder my liking it as well.  There are like four plazitas, with one being especially pretty.  I think “quaint” is a great adjective for the city.  The streets are pretty, there are also quite a few foreigners living there, and thus offering their unique cultural views, wares, customs, etc. (i.e. foooood).  It’s much colder, and there are two hills on either side of the centro that each feature a church, so climbing them is super cool.  We arrived at night, did some scoping, and found that there were tonssssss of hostels and hotels on the way cheap.  Pretty much 100 pesos is the standard/max for a hostel, so that’s a bonus.  We finally decided upon a hotel called…Sancris.  The staff were super nice and we negotiated down to 380 pesos (a night) for the four of us if we stayed two nights.  It was very, very comfortable and our first in-room access to internet.  Sleep.

Day 9: Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Awoke nice and early in San Cristobal and set out to conquer the two perched churches and see what I could of the city.  Still great.  We cruised the city a bit, found a great place to break fast on one of the few walking-only streets (the smallest one), which also happed to have a hostel for 70 pesos a night!  I peeped it and it seems sweet, gotta return.  We missed out on Cañon de Sumideros, but went to this very nice national park type place called Rancho Nuevo (that was clean and reminiscent of the positive aspects of the States) to see some grutas and ride some horses around the park.  Tranquilo, chido.  Returned to the city, rocked the two churches (again—for me), copped some poz (pronounced posh), which is the local alcohol of the area.  Stuff is stiff as nailz.  Easy to get faded off like 10 pesos of the stuff.

Day 10: Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Again awoke early in San Cristobal, took a walk, returned, and readied to leave.  We set out for Comitán, and made our way through and to El Chiflon cascadas.  This place was cool: nice and tranquilo at the bottom, but as you keep walking the water gets rougher, nearing the fairly huge waterfalls at the end.  We made it all the way to the top, and after about five minutes it of course started pouring.  Like, Pouringggg.  So we scurried down the rain-slicked mud and amazingly managed not to fall, then prepped to leave.  On the road back to Comitán proper, we encountered a delicious sunset and stopped for a bit.  We landed in Comitán centro fairly late (like 9), but the zocalo was very pretty.  Joana had a friend who’s dad lived there, so we arranged to stay at his place, met up with him, and went to his house.  His name is Mario and he knows a buttload about the state, especially the areas around Comitán, so he gave us his recommendations and we adjusted.

Day 11: Thursday, July 12, 2012

Woke up at Mario’s and readied for his scheduled day.  First up, Tenam Puente, which was a Mayan ruin site that seemed quite new and was almost totally empty (of people).  It was cheap and pretty cool.  We then went to our second ruin site of the day, Chinkultik, which was freer, larger, featured awesome vistas (of quite a few lakes), and all-in-all: cooler.  Also, we allowed some dude named Daniel Hernandez to be our guide.  Who knows whether or not he was telling the truth, but he was nice.  So, Chinkultik is very cool, I definitely recommend it.  Daniel says the site is only about eight years old, and it also featured a cenote (in which people cannot swim, unfortunately).  There’s also a lake super nearby where you can paddleboat, or even stay, I think.  Mario had also told us about Lagos de Montebello and Los Nubes, so we talked to Daniel about these and he said he’d take us to Los Lagos afterward, so we took him up on the offer.  And when I say “he’d take us” I mean “we’d take him.”  Anyway, we went to Lagos de Montebello, paid more to enter than we were told and more than the armband read, and were then mortified and enraged to learn that each individual lago charges another like 20 pesos per person!  Well, there are like 59 lagos, and it turns out a few don’t feature rogue casetas, so Daniel took us to a couple and we tried to enjoy, though were a bit pissed about the high tariffs and additional costs to visit the super cool lagos.  Anyway, we were mostly disfrutando when Joana se calló (though we didn’t know immediately).  She fell on her super awesome camera and it was deemed dead—also, her ribs were deemed probably fractured.  Muy malo.  We left, dropped Daniel off, made our way back to Comitán, found a medical consult for Joana, bought her some drugs, ate, and returned to Mario’s.  I did some work, but Mario was in a social mood and talked to Abraham and I till like three, four in the mornin’.

Day 12: Friday, July 13, 2012

Woke up at Mario’s at 7, ready to rumble!  …The rest of the group awoke at like 10/11 though.  Joana’s shoulder/ribs were definitely effed up, but she wanted to push forth to Frontera Corozal, which borders Guatemala and is very close to the supposedly magnificent ruins of Yaxchilan.  Yet another gorgeous Chiapas drive, though this time getting warmer instead of colder as we made our way south.  Arrived in Frontera Corozal and saw signs for some “Jaguar” place that seemed pretty cool, so we went there and asked about prices—they had cabanas for something we weren’t willing to pay and camping for 50 pesos a head.  We decided that was a tad caro for camping, plus both Joana and Abril were in pain, so that idea quickly died.  We went back toward a sign we had seen for a posada se llamó Liz Beth.  We negotiated the price down to…I dunno, like 75 pesos a head or something, and made use of the like 30 cable channels!  However, it was a queen and a single bed plus a hammock and a floor.  I made full use of the floor and watched Batman: The Dark Knight until I fell asleep in the wee hours, then woke up a bit later and moved to the bed for a short while.

Day 13: Saturday, July 14, 2012

I moved back to the floor and then woke up around 7 and cruised the pueblito.  There was another place very similar to the Jaguar place, and they let me use their internet, so that was cool.  Went down to the docks to ask about lancha rides to Yaxchilan, then back to the room.  We slowly but surely made our way back to the shore and hopped a ride up to Yaxchilan—45 minutes there, two hours to enjoy, and 50 minutes back.  Well, the boat ride was great and Yaxchilan was greater.  Super cool, super green, super lush.  I think my favorite aspect is that it features three levels.  You start outside the ruins and enter via a very dark tunnel, so that’s cool.  You’re then in…I don’t remember, the great plaza or something.  It’s cool, but from there you head up a mountain and shorlty reach the Grand Acropolis, though structures 39, 40, and 41 are quite a climb away, trekking up the selva mountainside.  It was spectacular.  From there you feel as though you have an awesome view because you are atop a mountain, but in actuality all you see is a wall of trees.  Oh well.  Made my way down and took a fork in the road that took me to the Small Acropolis, which structure-wise was probably my favorite lugar.  And from there down to the entrance.  Our two hours were almost up, I had broken my watch, and was separated from the rest of the group, so I ran back to the dock to look for our bro Pedro the lancha driver.  Saw neither him nor my party, so I ran back into the ruins and up some stairs buscando, but still didn’t see anyone, so back to the entrance to wait.  They showed up and we were just a tad late for the boat ride back—Pedro didn’t seem to mind.  Oh, on the way to Yaxchilan he pointed out some monkeys, and on the way back to Corozal he pointed out a crocodile.  Then we made a short detour to Guatemala!  We spent a whopping 15 minutes and were tempted to get some lunch (a woman had some delicious looking fried fish), but they told us the 30 Guatemalan peso fish was 50 Mexican pesos, so we nixed that, bought a Guatemalan beer, and headed back to the boat, where Pedro told us the two pesos are basically equal.  Mentirosa!  Back to the homeland and we made our way back up to Palenque.  Arrived and it was hot as hell and just a bit lame.

Day 14: Sunday, July 15, 2012

Woke up in Palenque with ganas to leave…  We made our way through Campeche, passing a ton of signage for ruins and the like, and on to Quintana Roo.  We stopped at the border of Belize and the others enjoyed the zona libre while I enjoyed the chicas de Babu Té due to the fact that I didn’t have my passport.  We then entered Chetumal (the capital), and found a hotel.  One of the chicas at Babu told me she’d be at a club called Rock Shots, so at like 1 a.m. we decided to give it a shot.  Turns out the club is actually two things: 1. Way fancier than we were prepared for (Abraham and Joana weren't allowed to enter as dressed and I had to roll down my pant cuffs); 2. Pretty freaking awesome.  My chicas, however, were not in attendance.  Well, I didn’t see them in my two minutes of cruising.  So I left, told the other two it’s cool, they told me to stay and I said I didn’t wanna rock it solito, so we went back to the hotel.