Palenque
I thought San Cristobal was a little funky, but that was because I hadn’t been to Palenque yet. We had heard from other travelers that a place called the Mayabell was the place to stay. In our camping bible it said that you will find more VW Campers there than anywhere, so we knew we had to stay there. We were actually the only VW Camper there which was a little surprising since this is hippie central.
The site was great. It is in the jungle, just 2 km from the Palenque ruins. We heard howler monkeys and other jungle animals from our campsite. There was lots of drumming, acoustic guitars and barefoot hippies singing and holding hands. There were naked toddlers named Luna, hemp and wooden bead necklaces, men in sarongs, pregnant woman without bras, woolen handbags with long straps, a 4 year old with better dreadlocks than any stupid-ass frat boy I’ve even seen in the States, some pretty scraggly facial hair and lots and lots of marijuana.
We set up camp with our Swiss friend Marcus and we just happened to be right next to another German guy, Dietmar, who has been traveling by motorcycle through South and North America for about 14 months. Again each one of us had great stories to tell and it was interesting listening to each other’s adventures. The first morning Marcus and Dietmar set off to the ruins bright and early. We got up slower, had breakfast, went for a swim and then went to the ruins. Both kids had fun again climbing up and down the ruins and exploring the tunnels and crumbling stairwells. The ruins are pretty spectacular. You just can’t beat the setting in the lush green jungle.
The next day all 6 of us went to Agua Azul. This is a river that travels through the jungle and cascades into pools as it comes down the mountain. The water is turquoise blue and beautiful. Some people at our campsite gave us some good advice where to go when we got there. There are lots of restaurants and vendors selling stuff, but we just kept going past all this until there were no more stands. At that point most people turn around and go back, but we kept going a little ways further and found a nice spot where we could swim. There current where we were was not that strong so it was possible to walk just a little ways upstream, get in the water and float downstream. Occasionally a few people would walk by, but for the most part we had the place to ourselves and we were the only ones swimming there for the entire afternoon.
I was sad to leave since this was one of the nicest settings we’ve stayed at in a long time. Next we’re off to the coast on the Yucatan Peninsula where we’ll by meeting our 16 year old nephew who is flying in to Cancun in about a week. He’ll be traveling with us for 2 weeks before flying home to Germany.
Tags: Agua Azul, Camping, Mexico, Mexico-Guatemala, Palenque
lotzbay
So it took me about this long to get on board with regularly checking your blogs but now that I am in the habit, you never put up new blogs! Can’t wait to have you back in town!