Met a couple of guys from San Diego traveling together and went with them to the ruins at Uxmal. I found them more exciting than Chichen Itza because you're still allowed to climb some of the pyramids. A lot of "maintenance" had been done on the site which meant a lot of very obvious concrete work which I thought was a bit of a shame/eyesore. Could have been more subtle/sensitive. One of my favourite parts of the grounds was a part they hadn't fully excavated that was left to the jungle.. Made you feel like you were discovering something. There were hundreds of iguanas living on the grounds which were both entertaining to watch and scary when you almost stepped on them.
We had to wait on the side of the road to be picked up by the bus on the way through. Luckily there was also a Chocolate Museum right there. There were a lot of strange flavours including corn chip. I bought a brick of chocolate for the 3 of us to share (it was gone before the bus arrived).
The next day I went on a tour to Celestun to see flamingos! I had no idea that their pink feathers are caused by the shrimp they eat! We took a boat out on the river amongst the flocks. You could clearly see the different large groups, apparently these are large families that stick together. Sometimes teenage flamingos go off and start their own new group. I imagined them off sneaking alcohol and smoking.
The day after I left for Tulum. I easily could have stayed for days more in Merida but I'm running out of time. I met the San Diego boys on the bus to Tulum, they'd spent the night in Valladolid to check out Chichen Itza. The three of us stayed in a cabaña across the road from the beach in Tulum, in a hippie sort of bamboo place. We had our own cenote in our backyard and free kayaks to use. I became the chef whilst the other two became cleaner and chauffeur.
We spent 3 days in Tulum exploring cenotes, ruins and beaches. The taxi drivers are backed by the gangsters and charge ridiculous amounts of money to get between the town and beach (about 150 pesos/$14 AUD). The colectivos only cost 20 pesos but have been intimidated into not picking to white people so that we are forced into paying the ridiculous taxi prices. Well, we weren't having a bar of that so we rented a car. Per day it cost just over the equivalent of a trip to town and back... And then we split that between the 3 of us. And just to spite the taxi drivers we picked up as many white hitchikers as we could.
Everything around Tulum is so beautiful. The turquoise waters of the cenotes is crystal clear. I spent a lot of time snorkelling around exploring the underwater caves and swimming with the fish. They're all so deep too, usually 5-8m and then there's the underground caves. Many people scuba dive and swim around the cave systems. I remember seeing a documentary at home about scuba divers mapping out the cenotes all connected by these underwater caves that eventually lead to the ocean.
Eventually we had to part ways - the boys have gone road tripping small seaside towns towards Belize and I've gone to Palenque to see the ruins. I'll see them again in San Diego before I fly home though!
I stayed just outside the ruin entry at a commune of sorts called El Panchan. There's 3 or 4 hostels and a couple of restaurants set amongst jungle, walking distance to the ruins. I spent a day exploring the Palenque ruins and they're my favourite that I've seen on this trip, almost rivalling Angkor in Cambodia for all time favourite. They feel very "tomb raider" because they're so hemmed in by jungle, a lot of which you have to walk through to reach the different parts of the ruins. Like Uxmal, you can still climb through/on a lot of the site. Only about 10% of Palenque is actually restored, the rest of the enormous site is still covered by jungle. It was beautiful exploring the moss covered ruins in the dappled light that sneaks through the jungle canopy, and there's a stream with waterfalls running through the site. Really really gorgeous.
I have to add that in El Panchan there was a restaurant called Don Muchos and they make their own pasta. I had 4 cheese tagliatelli and it was so damn delicious. Also it came with a side salad so I'm totally healthy. I really really miss fresh salad and vegies (ones that aren't fried).
I'm in San Cristobal de la Casas now and it is also a beautiful town! I want more time!
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