One more won´t ruin it

After a few days in the heat of Merida, we headed South (we are still coming home, just have to go around the Gulf). We stayed just outside of the town of Palenque, near the Mayan ruins of the same name. When we arrived at the ruins, we signed the log book, and I noticed a person from a country I had never heard from before, California. I hope some people just don´t vote! The ruins at Palenque are more restored than other ruins we have been to. We found this nice, to try and imagine what it was like, but it was also a little strange to see the temples so perfect. The ruins are situated up on a hill next to a stream, that turns into an impressive set of falls on your way out of the site. The museum at the exit is very impressive, with quite a few well intact carvings of the glyphs they used for a writing system. My favorite was of the name of a Queen Feather Heart of the Wind Place. We are trying to cram in a few places before the end of our trip, so we hit the road immediately and where off to our next destination.

Air on... Air off!

Today we did something I have always wanted to do, cave diving. I apologize for not having an underwater camera, as there is no way to describe the beauty that we saw today, but I will give it a shot. We met our guide Eduardo and made the drive out through rural Merida and to the cenote (from the Mayan word meaning hole). A cenote is a underground river, that has filled up an existing limestone cave. We prepared our tanks and our minds, with a little Miagi action, air on, air off. Laura, aka Danieldaughter, was ready with her booties. We lowered the gear down with some ropes, and then climbed down the ladder. The diving took a little getting used to, being in fresh water, and having no currents. The water however, was crystal clear, and the light coming in from the opening was amazing. We made our way down, and watched as our exhaled air would get trapped and look like oil spills on the cave roof. The dive was extremely relaxing, and was a great new experience. Laura plans on getting into cave diving more regularly now, and I keep getting surprised on this trip. The world is full of wonderful surprises and I am extremely lucky to experience them. Tired, we headed back to Merida, with a long drive ahead of us, to the lost worlds of Chiapas.

Musical Parking

So the border was a typical border, with having to leave to make photocopies, even though they had a machine there. We drove a long day and got to Merida, capital of the Yucatan state. We are keeping a tally, so far, 0 cops bribed. After finding a place to stay, the musical chair for our car began. The first parking lot charged a flat $1.20 per hour. We drove around for a while, until we found another that would be more like $0.70 per hour. This is still way out of our price range, as we normally spend around $5 a day. This charade would continue for the next three days, as we would keep coming across cheaper options. We got into town hoping to be in time for the Broncos game. We could only find a place that had another game on. We watched in desperate hopes to see some highlights at least. After the game they showed a whopping three highlights, 3-0 is all I have to say. Merida is a great colonial town, with colorful buildings and the people have been quite friendly. We spent the next day running a few errands, and getting to know the town. The food is unbelievable here. I think I could move here and eat myself to death. We had a relaxed day, and with the Broncos victory, I was on cloud 9. Not much to say about Merida other than we hung out for a few days and ate! Tomorrow off to do something new, again.

Back to Spanish

We were sad to leave all of our company, but we were happy to find our car neither stolen, nor eaten by the ferocious watch dogs. We made the short drive up to Orange Walk (seriously, who names these cities, a two year old). The town is nothing more than, well, nothing. We struggled to find a place to eat, as most everything was closed. The following day we signed up for a trip up a river to see one of the largest Mayan ruins at Lamanai. The boat left early and we didn´t even think to take a rain coat. Well it ended up being pretty much a canoe with a motor, and when it started raining, we were lucky to have two poor people in front of us, blocking most of the rain. It only rained for a short while, and the boat ride was extremely beautiful, and we got to see a lot of wildlife, including, iguanas, spider monkeys, crocodiles, birds (does anyone really pay attention to the different kinds of birds? Luke?), and a cactus that grows on trees. We had a short tour of the site, including a strenuous climb up one of the temples, actually using a rope. The view from atop was breathtaking, mainly cause it was nauseatingly hot, but also beautiful. After listening to our guides speak Creole to each other (farty tons), we headed back through another small rain storm and back to the fascinatingly boring town of Orange Walk (seriously the name of a town). We decided to hit the road and try and get to Mexico before the sun went down. We made it to the border fine and everything was going well, until we found out the customs office was closed. We had to stay at the border town and come back in the morning to get our importation for the car. However, we are glad to be on our last country, and only a short way from home. ¡VIVA MEXICO!

Jaws XXVI

So we made it out of the caves with no one sacrificed, although I think from all my jokes the girls wouldn´t have minded had I not made it out. As I said, we made it to the island and met up with our brother and wife. Nick was nice enough to drive us back to our hostel in his rental car (I love golf carts!). The island is small enough that majority of the transportation is done in golf carts. The island is really laid back and the people are extremely friendly, however, it is expensive. So much so that the four of us shared a two double beds to cut down on the costs a little. After watching the girls get sick here and there from having ice, or vegetables or whatever, I thought being down here long enough has made me immune to Montezuma revenge. It took some mean ladies hot sauce to finally send me over the edge (damn you Ms. Elvi). I fought my best and made it through a day of snorkeling and a day of diving! The first day we all decided to go on a snorkel/dive boat all together. A few of us dove at Hole Chan while the rest of the girls got some snorkeling in. We saw some turtles and rays, but was a very average dive to say the least. We got back in the water in the afternoon at Shark Alley. I am not sure, but I don´t think we would have seen sharks and rays had they not been feeding them. Our guide took the time to wrestle a shark and a ray (both harmless species). It is a quite strange feeling to have a sting ray sucking on your hand. After the thrill of being in the water with harmless animals we decided to up the anty a little bit. However, it was time for the girls to leave us and head up for Mexico. We said a sad goodbye to our new roadies, Spades and Googly. The next day Nick, Katie and I headed to the Blue Hole, a collapsed cave in the middle of the Caribbean that is over 1,000 ft. in diameter and 400 ft. deep. Katie was in the water snorkeling while we were preparing for our dive. Just before we started our ascent, we heard Katie swearing like a pirate, only later to find out why. The dive was amazing, we descended to over 130 ft. and the nitrous got to our heads a little. However, the structures were amazing, with stalactites over 6 ft. in diameter and 30 ft. tall, it was an unexplainable experience. On our slow decent, we noticed a couple of shadows above us. When we made our safety stop at a 25 ft. depth, we were surrounded by reef and bull sharks (the dangerous kind!). Some much bigger than us, as we got to the boat, we realized what Katie had been yelling about. The boat was surrounded, and then the feeding began. I am not a fan of feeding, but I can´t lie, it was amazing. They are trying to get the companies to stop feeding the sharks for various reasons, but you can´t blame them for attracting tourists. The rest of the day included two more dives around the area, seeing some amazing reefs, turtles and more rays. We also had a story book lunch on a nearly deserted island. The ride back was rough, and we got some napping in. We also found an amazing piece of artwork at a restaurant that night, the potter is a local hero and we couldn´t afford any her work, but it was truly amazing. Laura and I decided to get a move on and head back to the mainland the next day. For the second time on this trip we said goodbye to Nick and Katie (although the last time was over six months ago!). Back on the road, just me and my favorite sister. Only one more moon until we are home.