Our journey today took us by bus to Chich?n Itz?, one of the seven newly crowned wonders of the modern world (or something like that). Chich?n Itz? is famous for its large Mayan ruins and is mostly known for the large El Castillo Pyramid at its centre. For a couple of hours in the middle […]
Day 12 : M?rida
Most of the group headed out this morning for a cenote visit. The Yucat?n Peninsula is pretty much devoid of rivers and streams. In Mayan times the only fresh water to be found was in the natural limestone reservoirs that occur in their thousands in the area, the cenote. We would be swimming in some […]
Day 11 : The road to M?rida
It was our last long driving day of this section of our journey (the Central America part is a combination of three tours with GAP Adventures and a week to ourselves in Costa Rica). Everyone was at Don Mucho’s at 8am to take taxis to the bus station. Only one van arrived and it wasn’t […]
Day 10 : Palenque continued
After a brief visit to the onsite internet cafe (which was like a sauna, hence the breivity of the stay) we joined others at Don Mucho’s for drinks and card playing. The bill payment turned out to be a nightmare with one group of people being overcharged and then waiting an age for the manager […]
Day 10 : Palenque
The Palenque reserve opens at 8am so Keryn and I were up early to try and get to the gates for this time. We walked out of El Panch?n to the road and paid our reserve entry fee just as one of the public transport vans came past so we hoped in and were driven […]
Day 9 : The road to Palenque
Rather than the usual bus Juan Pablo had organised a van so we could make the journey to Palenque with a couple of stops to visit waterfalls along the way. We had been warned that the road was worse than that we had experienced on our night bus adventure so everyone who thought they might […]
Day 8 : San Crist?bal de las Casas continued
It rained most of the afternoon and early evening while we rested and then uploaded the blog in the travel agency across the road from the hotel. Once we were done with the Internet we went out into the town to find something cheap for dinner. We miss the ease and convenience of the Mexico […]
Day 8 : San Crist?bal de las Casas
Just about everyone in the group was travelling to the Cay?n del Sumidero this morning, the Rio Grijalva running through a canyon where the cliff walls reach up to nearly a kilometre in height. We were driven down from the heights of San Crist?bal down a road that followed the rim of the mountains giving […]
Day 7 : San Crist?bal de las Casas
From the bus station via taxi we travelled to the Hotel San Martin, a mere half block from the San Crist?bal Z?calo. Juan Pablo took us to the travel agency across the road from the hotel shortly after we arrived so we could book any tours for the next couple of days. Most people booked […]
Night 6 : The Night Bus
As usual we were on a nice bus with air-conditioning and reclining seats. Keryn and I were one set of seats back from the front and this turned out to be a good thing as we could see the road ahead of us. The driver of the bus obviously wanted to cut his driving time […]
Day 6 : Oaxaca
Tonight there would be a late departure, an overnight journey to San Crist?bal de las Casas. As such we had to pack our bags and place them in a single room with everyone elses so our rooms could be made ready for the next occupants. This meant I had to carry around the extra weight […]
Day 5 : Oaxaca
The tour organised for today started at 10am so we had a bit of a sleep in. Breakfast was the usual rolls with jam and a banana. We had a packed lunch for the tour as well, all this food having been purchased the day before or, in the case of the jam, in Mexico […]