24 February 2015
Today was a long bus journey but not with as early a start as originally feared. It was a comfortable local ADO bus (but a bit too air-conditioned for my liking) with movies showing in Spanish. It was a 9 hour journey with stops at 3 bus stations on the way, mostly with just a 5 minute bathroom break (although there was a toilet on the bus, most preferred the stations) and a 25 minute stop to get some lunch.
It was interesting to see how much the landscape changes as we went through the different states. Yucatan is a flat limestone slab (with thousands of cenotes but no rivers) and scrubby jungle that was just high enough that you couldn’t see anything but trees as you travelled along the straight roads – very boring! Once we crossed into the next state (Tabasco) there was a major change in scenery: the land became much lusher and greener with agriculture and rivers (even some wetlands) and massive prosperous-looking ranches. We travelled through Tabasco to the next state of Chiapas, to Palenque famous for its Unesco World Heritage site of Mayan ruins mostly still covered by jungle.
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- Mayan Sculpture in Palenque
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- By day
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- By night
It was 5.30 by the time we reached Palenque and walked a block to our Hotel Xibalba – Mayan for the Underworld. We had time for a quick clean up before meeting local guide Edgar and hearing about plans for the morning: we will be visiting the Palenque archeological site and doing a jungle walk; and then a brief orientation walk with Hugo.
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- Hotel Xibalba
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- Towel art in our room
Some went off to find cheap street food but Gill and I settled for seafood at the restaurant next to the hotel – delicious but enormous Prawn and Fish Ceviches, with a chelada (beer with lime juice) for me and a margarita for Gill.
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- Ceviche
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- Chelada
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- Margarita
Unfortunately Gill got sick that evening and was up and down all night. There were also local revellers coming in at all hours, so all in all not a restful night for anyone.
For this and other similar trips see:
Explore Central America with Intrepid Travel (a range of different travel styles – see my post on travel styles)
Explore South America with Intrepid Travel
Peregrine Adventures Travel Destinations (Comfort and independent tours)
Geckos Adventures Deals for South & Central America (for 18 to 30s)
Note: After people telling me they had booked an Intrepid Tour on my recommendation, I now have affiliate links with the Intrepid Travel group of companies and may receive a commission if you book a tour online within a couple of months after clicking through to these sites. So if you are enjoying my tips and stories and finding them useful in choosing your own travel, please click on these links and help me to bring you more ☺.
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