With the need to get to the Guatemala border, the only way we could see of getting to the north was through Palenque, rather than just take the bus, we decided to do a day trip and not take the return back to San Cristobal.
What arrived at 5.00am to pick up us up was not the kind of bus we were expecting, it was a shuttle bus with as many seats cramped in as possible.
So half asleep and feeling a little claustrophobic the bus drives through the narrow cobblestone streets of San Cristobal picking up other passengers until every seat in the bus is taken, where all snug and cosy ready for our 10 hour day tour…
We tried to sleep, as it was still pitch black outside but these mountain roads were just as bumpy and curvy as they were on our 20 hour bus ride to San Cristobal, no matter which way we tried position ourselves to get comfortable, put my feet on the window, slide down the chair so my short little legs could touch the floor, rest our heads on each other’s shoulders well ok it was mostly me who was leaning all over Blair, it didn’t help much. But hey this is real backpackers tours, we need to rough it a little so we have cool stories.
Only 2 hours later we made a stop at the tour guides friends restaurant, for breakfast and to stretch our legs.
Our next stop was at Agua-Azul waterfalls in the middle of the jungle in Chiapas.
These waterfalls were the smaller of the two with different lookouts you could walk up for a better view or the other option was, you could take a wooden raft through the falls to the other side to catch a glimpse from their. We opted out of the raft idea as it was held together with rope and they pretty much wanted to charge you for every lookout.
Even still we walked to the top and managed to get a great view from there.
We eventually made it to the larger waterfall Misol Ha for a 45 minute stop which allowed us time for a traditional lunch and a quick dip at the bottom of these gorgeous falls.
Fall stomachs and back in the bus and on route to Palenque to view some very impressive ruins and an ancient mayan city that dates back to (226 BC) this city resides deep in a very plush and humid jungle. As excited as we were to explore the ruins and find ourselves deep within cascading leafy picturesque jungle, sweat was pouring of me, climbing the massive steps that these mayans loved to build were causing my old-friend chafe to return with a vengeance as i was still in my towel from the dip at Misol Ha Waterfalls, i even tried to make a nappy out of my beach towel but that refused to work…The humidity in this jungle was fierce.
Visiting the Palenque ruins has given us even more insight into mayan culture and they say less than 10% of this ancient city has been excavated at this point in time which still leaves over 90% of this mayan city that is covered by the jungle and yet to be discovered.
Palenque city wasn’t much for us to rave about, apart from the hostel we stayed at ,it was pretty dirty and for us we were glad it was only for one night and onto Guatemala first thing in the morning.
Shannele
MY HOUSE IS A BACKPACK 