Agua Azul and Palenque Ruins

Us at the Palenque Ruins...all over 1000 years old!
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6am yesterday we had to break out of our mountain top accomodation. literally. we had been staying in some bungalow style rooms that were nestling on the edge of a tiny hill. to get to the stairs up to them, we had to walk through the courtyard and through a door. it didnt even occur to us that they would lock these doors at night! let alone with a bar of wood across the back of each door. i pushed the doors so hard that the wood bounced out and went flying across the courtyard, which woke the sleeping guard....

One of the temples
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we hopped in our tourist mini bus 30min later and headed on a windy windy route down from an altitude of 2200m to 450m. the view was spectacular - the sun was rising over the green chiapas mountains, but the mist was still heavy in the valleys below.... if only we had the camera quick enough! the driver drove like a bat out of hell. at one point he chose the bump as a perfect time to overtake, next bump he came to a complete stop slowly navigate his way over.

i was well relieved when we reached our first stop ´agua azul´. after watching a far bit of subtitled american sitcoms, i have realized the mexicans dont waste time with several words for the same thing (though this may be the subtitle writers slacking off!). Agua azul, literally means, 'blue water' - a bunch of cascades with a vast amount of water, tourist buses and huge community of restuarants selling empanadas. the waterfalls were quite pretty, and the mist rather refreshing! but they werent very blue at all :)

Another temple
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back in the bus, we pushed on to palenque. we had been quite excited about this spot. the mayan ruins are set in the middle of the jungle, and they have only excavated about 5% of what is really out there. some danish people hijacked us, the minute we got off the bus, for an english tour. pretty good value for money. the guide took us into the jungle, just on the outskirts of the site, to prove to us how close the next bit of unexcavated mayan ruin was.

it was incredibly hot. we were very grateful to get our necks wet from the cool waters of the river that ran along side it. after climbing up several temples, we rested. it was the first point that i noticed the really loud screeching noises that were coming from the jungle - howler monkeys. wow.

Phil in front of some more of the falls
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it was then that we started listening to the other tourists discussing their onward journeys and the obvious problem of Hurricane Dean. we rushed into the bus station to buy our onward ticket to merida for sunday night, 10pm. the longer we stayed in palenque town, the more news coverage we saw, the more frightened tourists appeared to becoming. the hurricane was scheduled to hit merida area by tuesday am. i eventually told jeremy we were being stubborn, if people we fleeing the area, us heading there wasnt the brightest plan ever!

Jeremy in front of the Agua Azul water falls
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so after waiting for 5 hours for a bus, we didnt get on it, found the closest hotel with a fan and tv (for hurricane watching purposes) and we rested! whew!

today (monday) we´moved hotels to one with air conditioning, its that hot. our plan from here was to move onto to merida, then chichen itza, cancun, isla mujares, cozumel etc. its my bday on thursday, so was hoping to be at a beach by then.... dont think the hurricane is going to co-operate with that plan!

we´ve booked on a tour tomorrow to see some more ruins up a river at yaxchilan + bonampak. hopefully on wednesday we´ll be getting on a bus to merida. crossing fingers....

toodles