Rumble in the Jungle

When last I wrote, John had come down with a stomach bug and it was time to move on from San Cristobal. This was the beginning of our jungle adventure. We would be hugging the Guatemalan border for the next week or so, stopping at sights along the way.

We had pre-booked two nights at a place at the next town, Comitan. This was a town of few attractions as such but was a nice town. The room was nothing special but, as this was more like a business hotel, it had a really comfy bed and was spotlessly clean. The staff were lovely and two spoke some English. This all turned out to be super important because a day later, I came down with one of the worst tummy bugs I've had for a while and John got no better. We ended up spending four nights here. That comfy bed was so appreciated cos we spent soooo many hours in or on it. That clean bathroom was so appreciated when we spent so much time in it as well! The lovely staff got buckets for me to throw up in and kept checking we were ok. My bug was more severe than John's but John's lasted much longer.

With being sick and not eating, we became quite weak and spent our days watching more Outlander. Not surprisingly, we finished it! I don't think season 4 starts anytime soon here. Oh no! It looks like we're going to take your advice Dave and watch The Umbrella Academy.

One night, when we were a little better, we had a brief walk to the main square where the usual dancing was going on.

One older guy was doing the whole Saturday Night Fever thing and was lifting his young dancing partner over his head. Everyone else was as entertained as we were.

The town square was decorated with these unusually sculpted trees.

There were some lovely churches too, including one I found that was decorated with flowers and branches for some sort of fiesta (yes - another one!).

There was a strong military and police presence here. We're not sure why.

Before we got sick, we had planned the next 10 days worth of travel and had booked a few places along the way. The aim was to make it to Veracruz for Carnaval. By the time we were well enough to move on, we had lost two days so we had to re-jig our plans. We had to completely miss a place that has over 50 lakes, many of them in different colours. I was so disappointed but that's the way things go sometimes.

Our journey would take us right along the Guatemalan border, an area that's rich in natural attractions. If you're interested, we went from San Cristoal de las Casas to Comitan then followed Hwy 307 all the way east, then north, then north-west all the way up to Palenque. This all had to be done by local transport, mainly minibuses, so we had to be sure we were well enough as there were no toilets and few stops of consequence.

The black lines on this map are the Mexican/Guatemalan border.

In an effort to avoid a long trip on the first day when we were still quite weak, we headed to a place called Las Nubes. It's only a small place and doesn't show on the map. Along the way we drove past quite a few houses that looked like Swiss chalets; cute double-storied places with sloping rooves, however many were clearly Mexican as they were painted hot pink or lime green!

Many Mexican drivers wander all over the road but our minibus driver took the obsession to hugging the centre of the road to new heights. It didn't matter that we were on a crest or a corner, he just straddled that centre line, no matter whether it was broken or solid. He always seems to get out of the way at the last minute though!

The last few kms of that day's drive took half an hour as we kept stopping to unload everybody's purchases that travelled on the roof of the minivan. We finally made it to our cabin in Las Nubes. It seems that whenever Mexicans stay in a place of natural beauty, they stay in cabins. The cabins here were right near the thundering waterfall at Las Nubes.

This place was incredible! The waterfalls weren't what you would normally expect. There were heaps of them and they pounded over rocky edges and often disappeared under the rocks beneath our feet, only to pop up again further down the river.

This long chasm was amazing.

Further down the river was a swing bridge. It was a gorgeous view looking back towards the falls.

As the sun began to set, hundreds of swallws came in to roost for the evening.

We found one place where part of the river poured down a few small waterfalls to a separate large pool. This pool then disappeared under the ground via a whirlpool. You can see the whirlpool in the foreground.

John threw a log and a branch in and they got sucked under the ground through the whirlpool!

The next morning we got up early and explored further down the river. To our disappointment we couldn't access any of the other waterfalls, however the morning mist over the river was beautiful.

We took a track back though the jungle which was really cool. We had to climb under and around rocks and the jungle was beautiful.

We really enjoyed these waterfalls. They were unique and stunningly beautiful.

There were limited transport options the next day so we paid to have a car take us back to the highway where we only had to wait 15 minutes or so until a minibus came along. While we waited we chatted to a husband, wife and daughter there who were fascinated by us. The country around us here was largely farmed with bananas and corn.

We had a long drive this day but the scenery was interesting and often beautiful. We drove past ranchos (cattle farms) where sleek, well-fed tropical cattle grazed. Equally well-fed horses were used to round them up. The grass is lush here! Many farms seemed to be switching to oil palm trees though.

Most minivans have some sort of lucky charm dangling from their rear-view mirrors. We were in one recently that had five car air freshener trees hanging from the mirror plus four bathroom scent holders stuck on the windscreen! The one this day took the cake though. He had a real goat's foreleg dangling from his mirror. A leather sheath encased the upper part of the shin and a leather thong was attached that to that so it could hang from the mirror. A hole had been drilled through the two parts of the hoof and another leather thong was threaded through this from which a leather tassle hung. It was bizzarre!

The road was often terrible along this border region. One stretch of a hundred kms or so was so full of potholes and slipped bitumen that we barely got out of the lower gears. We arrived at the main crossroad to our destination and easily got a communal taxi to Frontera Corozal. The town is called this as it's right on the border with Guatemala. Frontier towns like this are often a hive of activity but this town was so quiet you could shoot a cannon up the main road and not hit anyone. You might get this dog though!

As much as the town was interesting, we were here to see Yaxchilan, an ancient ruin on the river that forms the border between Mexico and Guatemala. To get there we had to catch a boat. We got to the boat area first thing in the morning and we were the only tourists there. We organised our boat and headed down the river.

Along the way we saw a couple of crocodiles basking on the riverbank. This one was about 4 metres long. I felt decidedly less safe when it slunk into the water.......

We arrived at Yaxchilan and had the place to ourselves for the first hour or so. We love it when we don't have to share special places like this with anyone!

Our entry to the ancient town obviously wasn't the original one as we walked in over ancient Mayan ruins.

The first building had dark, creepy passageways that we could explore. Sadly, our torch died almost immediately!

There were plenty of bats that were as unhappy about seeing us as we were about them!

Then we stepped out into the centre of the ancient city.

Just as fascinating was the jungle setting. Huge, gnarled trees were laden with all sorts of climbers, epiphytes and vines.

I watched a group of spider monkeys move through the trees above me. They swung so easily from branch to branch. I even saw one do the Tarzan thing and swing from a vine!

Meanwhile, John was ahead of me and he saw a toucan!

Howler monkeys certainly added to the atmosphere.

Many of the artefacts at places like this have either been stolen over the centuries or taken to museums. This piece only remained here because people tried to move it but it was too big to take down the river by boat.

A gorgeous engraving surrounded by eroded carvings.

Some buildings weren't near others and more gorgeous jungle walks were needed to reach them.

Most of the town used to be painted red. Some remnants still remained.

On the return trip we stayed close to the Guatemalan side. We saw more of those gorgeous yellow Buttercup trees, Bee!

While we were motoring back, we passed some cows drinking from the river then I watched for a few moments as a black cat ran along the river bank. Suddenly the boat captain saw it and quickly shut the motor down. It was then that the penny dropped - this wasn't an ordinary black cat! It was some sort of wild cat! The guy called it a tigrillo. I've googled it and tigrillos don't seem to be black. It was possibly a panther as these are one of the few cats that come in all black and they like to live near rivers. The captain reckons it was stalking the cattle. It didn't look big enough to me to bring down a cow but there was at least one calf very close to it and it certainly could have got that. I just wish I'd got a photo!

As we approached Frontera Corozal, it was weird to see taxis lined up on the gravel bank next to the river. This is where people cross the river from Guatemala and, in true Mexican style, the taxis wait exactly where you need them.

More gnarly roots. The river has washed away the soil around the roots.

We waited for nearly an hour at our hotel for a minibus that didn't turn up. While we waited, this cool lizard hung out near us. It looked like a direct decendant of the dinosaurs with that comb thing on its head and it ran on its hind legs.

We made it back to the crossroads and immediately caught a minibus all the way to Palenque. Palenque is the name of the town plus the name of the famous Mayan ruins about 7kms from the town. This is a big tourist destination and many hotels line the road to the ruins. We had booked one of these and when we got there we were blown away. For the same price as most other hotels we had stayed in we got a large room set in beautiful gardens and - wait for it - a pool! It was pretty hot and we were hot and dusty from the long trip and that pool was the best thing we had encountered for a long time. We hung around in it for ages talking to an American guy. Bliss!

The next morning we were at the ruins early, to avoid both the tourists and the heat. These ruins were really beautiful and some of the buildings were spectacular.

A copy of one of the carvings. The original was in a museum somewhere around the world.

While we hung out at the top of one of the temples, the howler monkeys were going gangbusters. They went on for ages. It was great!

This tower is very unusual for a Mayan ruin.

More fabulous jungly roots.

To leave the ruins, we walked along a beautiful track through the jungle and past more minor ruins. We walked over a swing bridge over this gorgeous river of crystal clear water. There was a sign saying no swimming which was a pity because it was so tempting. I bet the ancient Mayans took full advantage of the natural pools that formed here.

We checked out the fascinating museum where some of the treasures from the ruins are stored. Other Palenque finds are in various other museums around the world, mostly from having been stolen in previous centuries.

Check out the details on the sandals on the guy above. I've seen other carvings that show Mayans wearing sandals almost identical to some I've seen people wear now.

One of the greatest finds in Palenque was inscriptions like this one. These explained who lived here and what some of their rituals were.

There were great pieces of jewellery and art found in the tombs of the rich but the piece of art that caught my eye was this little pottery guy found in a poor person's grave.

I would love to have spent another afternoon around the wonderful pool but if we were going to make it to Veracruz for Carnaval we had to keep moving. We began the first stage of the long journey by catching a bus for three or four hours to Villahermosa. Villahermosa was just a big city and there wasn't much to see as such. We just wandered around giving our legs a much needed workout.

The next day we had a 7.5 hour bus journey which we were dreading but it turned out to be the most comfortable bus we had caught so it wasn't so bad at all. We had arrived at Veracruz!

Hastluego!

Heather