monkeys, cows, water, and pickups

It has been a long and wonderful week since the last blog! I can`t believe how time flies!

We are now traveling with Shahar, a super nice guy from Israel who has been traveling for the past year and a half. 

The state of Chiapas has a ton of incredibly awesome treasures tucked into its dense jungles, and we`ve been working hard to find as many as possible! 

Treasure #1 - Cañòn del Sumidero! Huge canyon outside of San Cristobal. We took a boat down through the water-filled fissure with towering walls 800 meters above! I felt so tiny. We saw some crocodiles, pelicans, and Christmas Tree Falls it immediately made me feel like making cookies and singing carols... I think the Christmas-spirit bug will bite hard this season! 

Treasure #2 - Aguacero! Absolutely the most beautiful waterfall any of us had ever found in our lives!  We found out about this hidden piece of paradise from a postcard we bought, fell in love with it, and tracked this mythical creature down!  We took a van to a bus, and from one bus, to another bus, to another bus, and then walked down a road in the middle of nowhere, with not a soul in sight, we hoped our rainbow chasing would lead something more than a muddy creek.


After wondering the road for a while we finally started seeing some shimmers of gold! And a HUGE pot of gold we did find! At the bottom of 720 steps, criss-crossing a river, traversing some rocks, and scampering up some terraced watering holes, we found everything including the leprechauns!
The towering series of waterfalls on one side of the river and a thousand foot red rock cliff on the other, and we were the only three there. We were over-whelmed with the beauty and we decided that this is what heaven would look like... at least part of it.  We swam the swift river, crawled through caves and caverns, poked at the wild vegetation, and got pummeled by the force of high falling water. 

Treasure #3 - Dìa de Muertos! What a celebration! We found a great cemetery in San Cristobal and it was packed with families, flowers, instruments, and food.
We were warmly welcomed by a few families to join them by the grave of their loved ones. They gave us some treats, drinks, and we talked about tradition, family, and travels. Mexico has proven to be one fiesta after another. No matter where we are, there is always something to celebrate with dancing, songs, and colorful happy people. 

Treasure numero cuatro - Laguna Miramar!  Wow. This one was way off the beaten path. We started in a little town of Ocosingo and took a pick up truck six hours south into the jungle. It felt so wild to bounce away from civilization for such a long time. The entire time I was in my favorite spot on the truck... on the roof sitting on my backpack with my face in the wind and only the hood of the truck between me and the road. Once we got to Emiliano Zapata there was an announcement made over the village loud speaker for the Presidente de Turismo to come to the ``office`` to meet three stray gringos. Six very happy men showed us to some river side cabanas and showed us where the yellow house was where we could get some dinner. We ate, played some cards, and crashed early and hard before a 6 o`clock wake up the next morning.

In the morning light, we hiked about two hours to Laguna Miramar! One of Mexico`s most pristine and remote lakes... we discovered that this rumor was 100% true.  Once again we were the only tourists who had been there in the past two weeks!

We took a ``kayak`` around the lake and found a cave with HUGE fresh water turtles and way too many bats, we nearly tipped the boat a few different times. The lake also offered hieroglyphics, a waterfall, and the water was perfectly clear and bath-tub warm! 

Treasure #5 - a huge day of travel brought us out of the depths of the jungle, into the city of Palenque where we found a place to sleep before we collapsed into a coma. The following day we woke up and headed out on a tour that would bring us to the Palenque ruins, and the waterfalls of Misol-Ha and Agua Azul. Palenque was a huge tourist trap compared to what we had been used to the rest of this trip. Somehow we have avoided the tourist part of Mexico so far. But the ruins were incredible. Fascinating structures, sculptures, hieroglyphics, tombs, courtyards, and all surrounded by a thick cloudy mysterious jungle. If i could have a super power, I would love to see what had happened in the past where ever I stood.

We just got off of a night bus from Palenque to Merida, different parts of my body fell asleep from time to time, but never the whole thing  at the whole time. Wow a little painful, but I`ll sleep like a rock tonight.  Off to snorkel through some Cenotes!  Hope all is well!