Cancun Photographs

Cancun is a strangely shapped region - the hotels along the coast are actually built on a very thin strip of land over 25km long. Betweenthis handle-shaped strip and the 'mainland' of the Yucatan Peninsula is a huge lagoon surrounded by mangrove swamps... complete with nice big iguanas basking in the sunshine! Here is the lagoon - you can see the hotels in the distance stretching along the horizon.

Sunset on the beach at Cancun - the Caribbean sea is a beautiful colour here. Nice waves crashing along the shore!

Playa del Carmen

If you jump onto one of the frequent passenger ferries from Isla Cozumel it’s only an hour-long ride back to Playa del Carmen on the mainland. This little port has thrived over recent years as a resort town. The scuba diving might not be as good here as it is on Cozumel, but Playa offers one very long beach with clear blue-green sea and perfect powdery white sand… which after all is what most holiday goers are interested in!

In other words, Playa del Carmen is a very popular destination - and so the pretty port does feel a little inundated with visitors at times. But there are no cruise ship docks here thankfully, so you don’t get the daily deposits of clueless, stupidly rich tourists you find on Cozumel. Actually the pleasant and lively main street feels more like a busy town in Asia than Central America – we found Playa strongly resembled Phuket for some reason! Yes, there are plenty of tacky souvenir shops, tour touts and over-priced restaurants, but the town is green and leafy, beautifully manicured, and it has a relatively friendly atmosphere.

We only spent two nights in Playa del Carmen – partly because we have very little time left in Mexico now, and partly because we aren’t exactly the type of people to just go to the beach on holiday! OK, we had some lovely walks along the sand in Playa, but we really didn’t fancy the prospect of lying on a sun-bed all day, slowly turning a deeper shade of lobster red… Yes, many people here are really impressively burnt!

Anyway, our next (and last) stop is Cancun. We’ll only be staying another 2 nights in the famous Mexican mega-resort before catching a flight back to London… for yet another wedding – this time for Gary’s best friend, Laura. This year has certainly had distinct themes to break up our travels!

Playa del Carmen Pictures

This is the very pleasent main street of Playa del Carmen - it runs the entire length of the beach, a few blocks parallel to the coast. A nice place - lots of trees, plants, lamps, and of course hugely over-priced tourist restaurants...

The beach! With crashing waves about to soak the lovely Gary... ha ha ha... Beautiful water, no?

We found this flock of gulls continually hovering over the same patch of sand - waiting for some food maybe? They made a very elegent sight in any case!

More of the beautiful beach at Playa del Carmen, this time with me perched on some very spikey rocks.

Isla Cozumel

Isla Cozumel lies just off the eastern coast of Mexico, surrounded by the jade green waters of the Caribbean Sea. It is actually the largest Mexican island - a full 53km long and 14km wide… not exactly a place to explore fully on foot! But to be honest, the main reason to come here isn’t to see the island itself, but to explore some of its spectacular reefs.

Well, at least that’s why a lot of people come to Cozumel (us included). But in reality we were startled to see on our arrival that most visitors aren’t at all interested in diving or snorkelling – or even visiting the reefs in a glass bottom boat to avoid getting their hair wet! No, most people simply shop. And shop. And shop. And have a beer. Before doing yet more shopping.

The only town on the island is called San Miguel de Cozumel, and the main focus of the place is to grab as much money as physically possible from the billions of US tourists that pass through the place every day from the cruise liners. We have never seen so many gigantic cruise ships anywhere before – in the middle of town a pier provides docking space for two boats, and a little to the south of San Miguel you’ll find another larger dock that can take four of the monsters at once! So if you wander through town in the middle of the day it is swamped by middle aged, overweight tourists (complete with silly caps and bum-bags) making their way from one jewellery shop to the next along the sea-front. They manage to migrate away from the cruise ports just far enough inland to see the central plaza (i.e. one block!), waste loads of cash in the oodles of tacky souvenir shops nearby, and then head back towards the ports to slump into a karaoke bar. After the relative peace and quite of our Latin American travels we weren’t quite expecting this!

The effect of the cruise ships on San Miguel is amazing. Touts are everywhere hailing the cruise-people, everyone speaks English to you rather than Spanish, and even the prices in shops and restaurants are quoted in US dollars – we got quizzical looks from the locals when we asked to pay in Mexican Pesos! But strangely most the touts seemed to be able to tell that we aren’t interested in whatever they are selling – we were given far less hassle than any other non-Mexicans wandering about. Perhaps we were a) too young, b) too shabbily dressed, c) too thin and d) wearing no jewellery – i.e. far too poor to be worth pestering!

Anyway, apart from spending a fair amount of fascinating time watching the tourists from the cruise ships get ripped off, we devoted two mornings of our visit to diving. Unfortunately the conditions weren’t exactly optimal – reasonable winds on both days made the sea really choppy, decreased visibility, and ensured that we froze on the boat after the dive. But fortunately Isla Cozumel has particularly good visibility even in adverse conditions, and the wind couldn’t chill us to the bone when we were actually underwater! Oh, and of course the reefs themselves weren’t bad either. One of them had by far the most spectacular coral formations we’ve ever seen – towering masses of multicoloured coral separated by narrow channels perfect for swimming through. As you passed around and under the formations it was even more like exploring a completely different world than usual when diving – utterly stunning.

The marine life was brilliant at times too. OK, we didn’t see the huge numbers of sharks and fish that we did in Tahiti, although four sharks did swim by in the distance once. But we found big gruppas, long barracudas, large lobsters, a cleverly camouflaged flounder, a turtle, and loads of sting rays. The highlight of the dives was when a huge spotted eagle ray easily 2 m wide from wing to wing swam slowly past us only a few meters away. We’ve never had the privilege to watch one of these elegant monsters so closely before. I think we may need to take up underwater photography…

Anyway, now we move back to the mainland, taking a one hour ferry ride to the lively town of Playa del Carmen. This will be our last stop before Cancun and the flight home – our trip through Mexico has been brilliant, but it is passing far too fast!

Isla Cozumel Pictures

A typical scene off the coast of Isla Cozumel: blue sea, pretty pelican, monsterous cruise ships! I mean ships - you can't see it from the angle of this photo, but another of these big iron hulks is lurking behind the 'Norwegian Jewel' in full view. Below is a photo of Gary in the pretty central plaza of town, complete with palm trees and silly water features (erm, a fountain formed by a bronze half-naked mermaid with a giant shell for a head?!). We were quite proud that we skillfully managed to exclude the millions of tourists and touts from the picture!

Sunset of the harbour of San Miguel de Cozumel. Pretty sky, rippling water, big boats...

Tulum

After visiting Chichen Itza we didn’t really pause for breath but hopped straight onto the next bus to the small coastal town of Tulum. This trip around Mexico is pretty hectic – our route from Mexico City to Cancun can be done in a month, but there is a lot to see on the way!

Which of course is why we’re visiting Tulum. This is our first stop on the Mexican section of the Atlantic Ocean - effectively entering the Caribbean. Somewhat typical of this part of the world, Tulum is blessed with vivid green-blue waters and startling white beaches, and so consequently it’s also cursed with plenty of tourists! Perhaps that’s a little unfair – most of the people staying in Tulum town clearly travel independently. But along the coastline northwards towards Playa Del Carmen and Cancun there are plenty of big resorts which are of course designed for package tours. So you see tourists by the busload wandering around Tulum’s Maya complexes in carefully shepherded groups.

We only had a day in Tulum, but we managed to visit two lovely sites. Ok, it involved lots of rapid walking (over 17km by the time we collapsed for the evening), but it was definitely worth the effort. The first complex we visited was Coba, which was a little out of town, but easily reached by an hour long public bus trip. The nice thing about Coba is its jungle setting. A little like Ta Thom of Angkor in Cambodia, this is a place where the lush jungle is trying really hard to reclaim the ancient ruins. Trees grow on top of temple walls, vines hang randomly around, and you have to peer through the shrubbery to make out sections of ruins surrounding you. OK, the site itself is nowhere near as complex as Palenque or Chichen Itza, but it’s a lot of fun to visit nonetheless. Especially as it has two lovely pyramids in beautiful disrepair – you can even climb to the top of one for stunning panoramic views over the jungle and surrounding lakes.

We were very intrigued by the other people who climbed this pyramid. As we had very little for time we made a rapid ascent, caught our breaths and then walked quickly back down again. Actually my descent was more of a rapid trot, as I wanted to get to the ground much faster than Gary so I could take some photos of him coming down! See below for the resulting pictures of course. The interesting thing was that everyone else took ages to walk up and even longer coming down. Most of them seemed to be descending on their bottoms, a step at a time! OK, the steps were a little uneven, but we’ve seen much, much worse. The Great Wall at Simatai, Macha Picchu, Pisac… We were very perplexed at their trouble! On the other hand, as I literally ran down the slope most people stopped and stared at me – perhaps we were the odd ones!

Another good reason for visiting Coba is to have a quick look at the lakes near the site. Why? Crocodiles! We may have failed to see crocs in their natural habitat in Australia, but we saw two of them here – one swimming sleekly along the bank, and the other right under the pier near the ruins. He was beautifully menacing – big teeth and very evil eyes…

After our rapid visit to Coba, we hopped back on the bus to Tulum, and then walked the 3km or so from the town centre to the coast where there is yet another beautiful Maya complex. These ruins (also called Tulum) aren’t as extensive as most of the ones we’ve previously visited, but they also have one of the best locations – right on the cliff top overlooking white beaches and turquoise-blue waves. Beautiful. Even better, they are infested by really big iguanas – we had a great day for lizard spotting! The lazy creatures were completely unperturbed by the humans wandering around, and happily basked in the sun on the cliff tops. Well, the view was magnificent so who can blame them!

Anyway, after the hectic few days we’ve just had we think we deserve a well earned break. So we will now move to a small island just off the coast of Playa Del Carmen – Isla Cozumel. Although I think our time lazing on the beach might be limited, as apparently this is one of the best places in the world to go scuba diving. We’ll let you know if it can match our dive with the sharks in Tahiti in a few days time!

Tulum Photos

We always wanted to see a wild crocodile this trip - we hoped we'd get the chance in Australia, but no luck. So we were pretty pleased when we bumped into this lovely specimen in a lake near Coba ruins! Evil eyes...

Below you can see the two pyramids in Coba - the one on the right is surrounded by trees is in the central complex and too fragile to climb, but you could scale the pyramid inthe left photo for amazing views over the jungle. Well, we had no problems. But if you look at the photo carefully everyone except Gary is in trouble! Lots of them are sliding down a step at a time on thier bottoms... pathetic?!

Tulum Maya ruins have a gorgeous location on the sea shore... and fantastic reptilian inhabitants. This iguana was a small specimen, but he was quite happy to pose with me for a photo on the cliff top.

His big brother was quite willing to be photographed too! This one must have been nearly 2m long, and had an impressive range of spines down his back.

The lovely beach of Tulum ruins, with some Maya remains perched on the cliffs, and Gary basking in the sun. No lizards about this time!

And after a very hard day of rapid walking to see lots of lizards and Maya ruins, our hotel had some very relaxing options for the evening!

Chichen Itza

On our travels this year we’ve seen many wonderful things… most of which we’ve tried to show with photos on this webpage. Sorry – the photographs are always tantalising disappointments compared to the real things, but it’s the best we can do. Actually we have (completely unintentionally) managed to visit four sites that in a survey conducted a few years ago were voted the ‘New’ Seven Wonders of the World… the Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, and as of today, Chichen Itza. We even managed to see the ‘honorary’ ancient member on the list – the Pyramids at Giza last December! Not bad if we were trying to keep a tally, but in reality we only looked up the list of ‘New’ Wonders a few weeks ago!

Anyway, we’ve discussed all the others in detail in past blog entries – so what about Chichen Itza? Well, it’s nice, but I’ll get the bad news over first – it doesn’t compare to the other ‘Wonders’ we’ve visited. Worse still, it really doesn’t come close to being in the same league as the amazing Angkor Wat that somehow isn’t on the list yet remains by far the most impressive ancient structure we’ve ever seen. I think the real reason Chichen Itza is included is it’s proximity to the incredibly popular resort of Cancun… it is far easier to visit than any of the others Wonders we have visited, so more people come here… which equals more votes in a survey. This demonstrates how useless constructing ‘ranked lists’ can be – if you expect Chichen Itza to have the stunning location of Machu Picchu, the immense majesty of the Taj Mahal, the grandeur of the Great Wall, or the utterly massive solidness of the Egyptian Pyramids you’ll be disappointed. Which is really unfair – it’s still a truly lovely Maya site with a beautiful central pyramid-temple that’s definitely well worth visiting. It’s just that the label ‘Wonder’ and grand comparisons end up devaluing what is nonetheless a very impressive and extensive complex.

The site of Chichen Itza is arranged more or less in the shape of a cross, with the beautiful Kukulcan Pyramid squarely in the centre. As you enter the complex and walk down the first limb of the cross you pass first rows of souvenir vendors that line the whole site (and primarily target the tour groups from Cancun) to gradually see the pyramid emerge behind the trees ahead. Kukulcan is situated in the middle of a large grassy clearing in the dry-jungle, with surrounding temples, smaller pyramids, ball courts and other ruins all sited a fair distance away. It is an impressive structure – a beautifully preserved and carefully restored ‘stepped’ pyramid about 25 meters high, covered in pale white stone. Apparently the number of steps up each side, the flights of stairs, carvings, etc all represent different aspects of the Maya calendar – and best of all, at the spring and autumn equinoxes shadows playing on the sides of the pyramid mimic a serpent sliding up or down! Actually the spring equinox is in a few weeks time, so in the early afternoon sunshine we got a lop-sided impression of what the effect looks like – have a look at the photos below…

The other areas of the extensive complex are also fascinating. As in Uxmal and Palenque there were lots of temples, pyramids, stone staircases, sacrificial alters...We particularly liked a huge building on the far side of Kukulcan which consisted of hundreds and hundreds of pillars on a stone base stretching in various directions from a central temple structure with impressive staircases. Unfortunately the roof that the pillars previously supported crumbled centuries ago, but they remain impressive. We haven’t seen anything like this since ancient Egypt – it’s very different from the usual ruins in Latin America. Another curious feature is that many of the temples, pyramids and pillars scattered through the complex were very carefully carved to show complex patterns or basreliefs. Gary’s favourite was a wall which seemed to show a game of noughts and crosses (crosses cheated and added a few extra symbols though!), but I preferred a temple with walls constructed from hundreds of ornamented stone slabs – each slab had a very friendly-looking skull engraved on its surface! Apparently the heads of defeated tribe leaders were kept in this building in ancient times…

One drawback to visiting Chichen Itza is it’s proximity to Cancun. This unfortunately means that you will not get to explore the lovely ruins in solitude, but instead have to dodge lots and lots of huge tour groups. Really big ones – each with 30 to 40 people, mostly from the USA. Actually watching some groups them wander by in the distance as we sat in the shade of a tree near Kukulcan Pyramid we thought they looked like migrating herds of wildebeast! It is just as well the central plaza around Kukulcan is so large… it accommodates vast numbers of (mostly overweight) tourists remarkably well! Considering the site is so easy to reach independently it is a great shame that most people seem to opt for a package – hop on one of the nice comfortable first class buses instead for more freedom and to save a few pesos!

Chichen Itza Pictures

Our first view of the fantastic Kukulcan pyramid at Chichen Itza - emerging prettily from the trees that line the massive grassy space around the pyramid. As you can see, it´s a stepped structure, with geometric patterns decorating each level, and a simple temple on top. In front of it is a very diminutive Vicki!

This building with the columns was probably my favourite on the site - there were hundreds of them streaching for hundreds of meters around a central temple. Not all the columns were reconstructed however... circular slabs littered the area, making a comfy seat for Gary. Below you can see another favourite feature - a wall of skulls!

More pillars... this time all reconstructed. So no seats for me to have a rest...

This was an observatory, nicknamed ´the snail´ in Spanish, perhaps due to the domed roof. It was in yet another region of the extensive complex, surrounded by more temples an pyramids - the Mayas didn´t do things by half when they constructed cities.

Finally, this is the Kukulcan Pyramid in the late afternoon sun, with Gary. On the left side you can see some steps with two serpent´s head carved at the bottom of the banisters. Just to the right of the closer step edge a strange light-shadow boundry makes it look as if the snake is running up the pyramid! This is a bit lop-sided - perhaps a boa constricter that has reacently had lunch? Apparently the effect is best during the Spring Equinox.

Merida

The Yucatan Peninsula is the most easterly portion of Mexico – the bit of land above Guatemala and Belize that separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean. The most well known city in Yucatan is of course Cancun, the famous international beach resort with miles of pristine sands and hotels… package holiday paradise. Actually Cancun is the final destination of this trip as it has a handy international airport – it’s on the north east corner of the peninsula. But we have a few stops planned en route for our last two weeks travelling, allowing us to see impressive Maya cities, crocodiles, and perhaps to scuba dive in some of the clearest tropical waters on earth. Or at least that is the plan!

Anyway, our first stop in our tour of the Yucatan Peninsula is the Spanish colonial town of Merida, situated near the coast on the northwest corner of land. It was a painful 8 hour bus journey from Palenque, through loads of pointlessly bureaucratically time consuming yet completely superficial police checkpoints (aimed we assume to give the impression of tackling local terrorist groups and drug cartels… but in reality the police were more interested half-baked searches of foreign visitors’ luggage than locals bags – making it completely pointless?).

Eventually we arrived in Merida to discover it is another pretty little Spanish-style town, with a lovely leafy central plaza, nice cathedral, pink churches… and lots of vendors trying to sell souvenirs to the herds of tourists from the USA. The touts really don’t pester us anywhere near as much as all the other travellers here – perhaps in the course of the year we’ve learnt to project an aura of disinterest! A very handy skill!

One of the reasons we were keen to visit Merida is that it is close to lots of ancient Maya ruins – after all we really liked Palenque and the other ancient Mexican cities we visited a few weeks ago. So we spent one day on a very handy local bus service visiting a number of sites in the region. One very hectic day. You see, the second class bus company ATS runs a service that leaves Merida terminal at 8.00 am each morning, loops around an impressive cluster of Maya sites on the Puuc Route, and then returns to Merida in the late afternoon. This trip is a cheap, handy way of seeing the most impressive temples and cities in the area while avoiding tours completely! No irritating guides, no herding around, lecturing – perfect. The only drawback is that the bus stops at each Maya site for a relatively short time: 20 – 30 minutes at the smaller complexes, and 1.5 hours at the large city of Uxmal. So you really do have to get your skates on to see each set or ruins… this is not a trip for the unfit!

The day we selected for our whirlwind tour of the temples was absolutely beautiful – clear blue skies, roasting sunshine. We’ve left the chilly altitudes well behind now and are firmly in the tropics again. The roasting temperatures didn’t exactly make the rapid trot around the Maya pyramids particularly comfortable… but the brilliant blue of the sky certainly made the photos we took pretty! Luckily the bus was well air-conditioned and offered a good respite on the short trips between ancient complexes.

First we visited Labna – a small but interesting site with its long El Palacio decorated with lots of columns and serpent’s heads. Labna also had a few temples, a rubbly pyramid, and a beautifully proportioned arch complete with decorative swirls. Then it was a quick 5 minute bus trip on to Xlapak which consisted of little more than a few isolated buildings in the middle of a reasonably dense forest. Afterwards we moved on to Sayil with its really impressive 3 storey El Palacio nestled in a pretty forest clearing. Actually there are plenty of temples and small structures scattered in the woods around the Palace… we went in search of a few and ended up running out of time horribly and having to run back to the bus! We did manage to find the well preserved and oddly roofed temple El Mirador, and a stone carving depicting a very well-endowed fertility God though! And then we travelled to the last of the minor complexes – the very wonderful Kabah. This was particularly worth seeing as it has a huge El Palacio, extensive and curiously decorated temple compounds, carved figurines, large pyramids… and for the really big lizards scampering through the undergrowth!

Our last stop of the day was at the extensive Maya city of Uxmal. By this time we were feeling more than a bit hot and bothered with our 30 minute-dash-stops at all the small sites, so we were glad to have a leisurely one and a half hours to see Uxmal. But Uxmal turned out to be so extensive that our one and a half hours turned into a bit of a lightning tour again! It’s just as well we normally walk fast! Anyway, this place is really worth seeing. It was clearly an important Maya city in ancient times, and the beautifully restored remnants remain impressive today. Huge palaces, governor’s houses, temples, bell courts, pyramids… and all blissfully quiet. During our visit we didn’t encounter a single large tour group (until we passed an irritating bunch of 30 odd overweight US teenagers on the way out) – perhaps most visit in the morning, which would make the afternoon arrival of the ATS bus trip a particularly good option for exploring in peace and quiet. We particularly liked the huge 39 meter high curved-pyramid-like temple Casa Del Adivino that looms over the entrance to the complex – if you clap your hands at the base of the rear of the temple you are rewarded by a really odd squeaky echo! Or there’s the Grand Pyramid with its impressive flight of steps to climb, the intricate serpentine heads decorating the Palacio Del Gobernador, or even the giant-lizard-infested rubble of the Cementerio pyramids with their skull and cross-bones engraved walls! Uxmal is lovely to wander around, and still nice to race through at break-neck speed in scorching temperatures like we did!

Well, we don’t have much time to catch our breath – tomorrow we visit Chichen Itza on the way to the coastal town of Tulum where we can catch our breath slightly for two nights before moving north towards scuba-diving heaven!

Merida Photographs

Merida is a pretty little place with elegant churches and cathedrals - particularly nice in the evening light as you see below. But the highlight of our visit was the chance to explore the Maya ruins nearby. This is Kabah, where you can see Gary near the base of the steps up to a temple of the Rain God (represented by hundreds of masks with long curly noses for some reason).

The elegant Maya arch at Labna - with me standing underneath (hoping to escape a bit of the midday heat).

El Palacio at Sayil - another impressive site! And only half an hour to explore its miles of woodland paths with scattered ruins before our bus whisked us onwards...

This is the sight that greets you as you walk through the entrance to Uxmal. An impressive oval pyramid tempal with soaring stairs (that unfortunately you are not allowed to climb). But if you stand where Gary is and clap sharply you will hear a wonderfully squeeky echo - it´s really odd!

This is one of the gorgeous lizards we found wandering around the ruins. We think it´s an iguana. He was lurking at the base of a crumbling pyramid in Uxmal, and swifty climbed up to the apex of the structure to avoid me and my camera!

Gary in front of the Palaces and pyramid temple at Uxmal - an impressively big site don´t you think?

And finally the front of the Casa Del Adivino - more steps, and a small Vicki to add a bit of scale to the photo!

Palenque

After the icy evenings of San Cristobal, we were relieved to discover that the small town of Palenque was in the middle of the jungle – a return to tropical temperatures to thaw off a little! OK, the jungle environment does have some disadvantages, say the odd mosquito or two… or maybe two hundred. I think Gary preferred the icy altitudes as he spent most of our first night in Palenque trying to track down the mossies in our room and squish them with the huge Mexican Lonely Planet Guide! I had a much more restful night – I must be less tasty!

Anyway, the main reason to visit Palenque isn’t to see the town itself but the spectacular Maya ruins nearby (also called Palenque). This is just as well as the town seems to consist of an extensive network of road works as far as we could see – although if you could scramble through the trenches and mud that replaced the streets you could find the odd plaza or park. But the adjacent ancient Maya city is beautiful.

Situated on the edge of the jungle, Palenque Maya city consists of numerous impressively complicated and beautifully preserved buildings in stunning surroundings. As you enter the site you climb a short flight of stairs through the undergrowth to emerge on a grassy expanse in front of a series of elegant stone temples – and from here it’s only a short walk to numerous palaces, pyramids, and tombs, all carefully restored and maintained. The Templo de las Inscriptions is a beautifully proportioned pyramid tomb just a stone’s throw from the huge El Palacio with its soaring tower and labyrinthine tunnels. Or move slightly further along to the Templo del Sol with its weird roof comb, and then climb the Templo de la Cruz for breathtaking views down over the complex. This is simply a very intricate collection of numerous intriguing buildings, all at the edge of a beautiful jungle. Definitely worth visiting!

Unfortunately lots of people have realised this… we didn’t exactly have the place to ourselves. The vast majority of visitors to Palenque were in huge tour groups – each had 30 to 40 overheated, middle aged people dutifully following a yapping guide around. From our point of view the groups were really annoying to be caught behind, but on the other hand if you successfully dodged them you could explore the ruins in relative peace! We really felt sorry for the poor sods in the groups – some of them looked so bored! Which is tragic in such a beautiful and interesting place. What’s more, none of the groups strayed from the first collection of buildings, even though there was so much more to see. After exploring the upper cluster of temples you could walk downhill through the jungle to explore other groups of buildings, all isolated and some completely immersed in the undergrowth. Ducking under palm trees and clambering over Maya stonework alongside elegant waterfall cascades while howler monkeys shrieked eerily in the trees above… wandering through these ruined complexes felt like exploring an Indiana Jones set.

Anyway, our stop in Palenque was necessarily brief as we have a tight schedule to keep to if we are to make it to Cancun in time for our flight home! Next we move on to Merida, a colonial town on the northwest corner of the Yucatan Peninsula – and within striking distance of a few more Maya playgrounds!

Palenque Pictures

The wonderful line of temples that greet you as you step through the jungle into Palenque! Closest is the wonderful Templo De Les Inscriptions, and as you move further away you see a tomb containing a red-sarcophagus (which used to house a red-dyed queen), and a smaller temple decorated with carvings of rabbit sculls. Wierd place!

Here you can see a very small Vicki on the steps of the rabbit-skull temple. Bearing in mind this is one of the smaller structures in the complex, you can start to get an impression of the size of the place.

And this photo of Gary on the grassy lawn in front of the wonderful Temple of Inscriptions also helps give an idea of scale! This tomb is possibly the most impressive we've seen since the pyramids in Cairo - a really beautiful tiered white pyramid with a simple temple structure on top. Very elegant.

If you climb to the top of one of the tallest pyramids in Palenque this photo to the left with Gary shows the view that greets you. It is a stunning view - a good reward for the hot, tiring climb up the never-ending steps (see the photograph below showing Gary half way up...). On the left of the view you can see the wierd Temple Del Sol, with its very odd roof, and to the right are the wonderful structures shown in the first picture of this blog entry.

More wonderful views! This time on the right of the picture you can see the lovely 'Palace' - complete with soaring tower and labyrhythine tunnels riddling the stone base. Really impressive.

This is a quiet green part of the complex we wandered through as we descended into the jungle. Again, by the size of the tiny Vicki in the corner you can see how vast Palenque is! From here we started to hear the cries of the howler monkeys - really loud and scarily eerie shrieks! We wondered at first if someone was being tortured in the jungle undergrowth! It certainly added some atmosphere to the place...

San Cristobal De Las Casas

After spending a turbulent night on the coach from Oaxaca, we hoped that San Cristobal would be a pleasant place to recuperate. Or San Cristobal De Las Casas to give the town’s full name – what a mouthful! Unfortunately, San Cristobal maybe a pretty town with brightly colour buildings, lively plazas and twisting streets, but it’s also FREEZING! We thought we’d left the high-altitude iciness back in Peru and Bolivia, but apparently not. In the 5 minutes it took to walk from the bus terminal to our hotel my poor toes turned to 10 lumps of ice… typically Gary thought the icy temperature was ‘refreshing’! Grrr.

Anyway, if you get over the temperature with lots of vigorous walking by day, having hot Mexican food for dinner and huddling under blankets at night, San Cristobal isn’t such a bad place to relax. It’s a small town, but it really is a pleasure to explore the cobbled streets, or to wander up one of the surrounding hills to peer into one of the little colonial churches that perch on top. We even browsed some of the shops selling locally-mined amber – Gary was a little taken aback when I explained that the translucent yellow ‘rock’ was effectively hardened resin, and could even feature trapped insects…

Well, we will now descend into jungle territory, where hopefully it will be a bit warmer! Over the next few days we’ll travel north into the Yucatan peninsula towards the sunny beaches of Cancun, Playa Del Carman and Isla Cozumel – so we’re pretty hopeful that the weather will warm up.

San Cristobal Photos

The colourful main street of San Cristobal - and a rare example of blue sky! Luckily this little town remains pretty in cloudy, rainy, miserably cold weather...

San Cristobal has two very pretty churches on top of hills overlooking the town. Lots of steps to climb up to the top though! Here Gary takes a break half way up one hill, and below he made me stand on a seat for a photo on the top of the other one.

An overview of the colourful town - colourful despite the grey looming clouds!

Oaxaca

I found it completely impossible to pronounce the name ‘Oaxaca’ for the entire duration of our stay in the pretty little town. The problem is that in Mexican Spanish the ‘o’ becomes a ‘w’ and the ‘x’ approximates to an ‘h’… completely defeating my attempts, and making Gary’s version sound like ‘Wa-ha-ka’. Hmm. In any case, Oaxaca (however you pronounce it) is a really lovely place to visit – an exceptionally pretty colonial town, littered with pretty plazas, marble-white churches, colourful old buildings and lively cobbled streets. Just perfect for passing a lazy afternoon in a curb-side café sipping espresso and watching people wander past.

Another nice thing about the town is that it is surrounded by a number of curious places which make great day trips when you’re tired of all that exhausting lounging around in cafes over lunch. Perhaps the most random is the tiny village of El Tule – which is easily reached by collectivo as it’s only 10km from Oaxaca (and has almost been absorbed as a suburb of the town). The village itself is pleasant but unremarkable save for the churchyard. Here the pretty little white church is completely dwarfed by a massive tree which is claimed to be the largest in the world! I’ve no idea if this is true – at 49m high it certainly isn’t the tallest, but the trunk may be the widest with a massive diameter of 12m. It’s certainly an impressive plant – an ahuehuete (Montezuma cypress) estimated to be over 1500 years old it was growing when the powerful ancient civilisations of this region were thriving and constructing equally impressive cities…

Which brings me to Monte Alban, our other excursion from Oaxaca. Monte Alban is an ancient and extensive mountain-top city constructed by the Zapotecs several from hundred years AD. There are no huge pyramids here as there were in Teotihuacán near Mexico City, but an impressive range of palaces, temples courtyards and tombs, all perched on top of a vast flattened mountain top with spectacular views down over the surrounding valleys. It is a really large and impressive site which took us a few hours to explore. To be honest at this point we’re beginning to wonder just how many fantastic archaeological sites there are in Mexico from one civilisation or another as we haven’t even got close to the more famous ones yet!

Anyway, despite being a lovely relaxing little town we couldn’t stay long in Oaxaca as we are now into the last month of our trip – and there’s a lot to see in our route across Mexico. We’ve just arrived at our next stop, San Cristobal, after a tiring overnight bus journey, and will recover here in the icy high altitude climate for a day or two before hitting Palenque and the lands of the Mayas.

Oaxaca Pictures

This giant tree is claimed locally to be the largest in the world - well, at 48m high it certainly isn't the tallest, but with a trunk diameter of 12m it may be the widest! Have a look a the picture with Gary below. The tree is in a village next to Oaxaca called El Tule, where it dwarfs the little white church.

This is the fantastic ancient hilltop city of Monte Albin - only 6km from Oaxaca the views over town are stunning. This citadel was constructed over hundreds of years by the Zapotecs - it's huge (as you can see from the tiny image of me at the back of these steps... And it has lots of lovely palaces, temples, huge plazas and courtyards.... all immaculately restored. Great ruins. We particularly liked some of the stone carvings scattered around the place. Apparently the various tribes of ancient Mexico were pretty bloodthirsty - lots of sacrifices, beheadings etc. The speciality of the Zapotecs was to perform a malignant form of castration first - they would cut off the genitalia of the tribe leaders they conquered. And then they would carve the images of these figures into their walls - complete with gushing blood in the region of the genitals! Have a look at this specimin to see what we mean...

A nice overview of a corner of the Monte Albin Complex - a few pyramids, a small Gary, and lovely views over the surrounding valleys in the background.

Mexico City

Many descriptions of Mexico City don’t exactly advertise it as the most appealing place to visit… one of the most crime-ridden cities in the world, permanent smog of pollution, 4 kidnappings a day, dangerous layers of ground-level ozone… erm, very tasty! So when we realised our plane from Lima was arriving relatively late in the evening we wondered how difficult it was going to be to make it to our hotel at all, let alone in one piece. As it turned out we didn’t have too many problems, especially as we found the vast majority of the residents of Mexico City remarkably friendly and helpful.

I think the key to moving around Mexico City is the avoidance of taxis. Most kidnappings are intended for theft only – short term ‘express-kidnappings’ aimed only at emptying the victim’s bank accounts before release. And the majority of these happen to wealthy people using taxis. Hail a fake cab by mistake on the street and your driver will take you to the destination of his choice rather than yours, where his friends await. Nasty, but fortunately very easy to avoid – don’t use taxis! Actually large cab companies such as the airport taxis are meant to be safe, but even these aren’t essential as the underground system actually reaches the airport (or at least it’s only a 10 minute walk away). Fortunately the metro is extensive, cheap, relatively modern, and safe… i.e. lots of armed guards everywhere! The guards were actually very helpful when we arrived, and even let us onto the system for free so that we didn’t have to lug our bags 200m or so to the other end of the station to get to the ticket booths!

After successfully negotiating our way to the centre of town with all limbs and luggage intact, we found that Mexico City is actually a very pleasant place to explore. The streets reminded us a lot of Santiago, not particularly surprising as both were originally Spanish Colonial Capitals. Mexico City however is much larger, and has a more impressive array of central Plazas, Cathedrals and (as it appears to be much wealthier) shopping malls! Nice for wandering around in the afternoon before having an enchilada or taco for tea. We haven’t seen any margaritas on offer here yet though - shame.

One disconcerting thing about Mexico City is the presence of very large numbers of guards and police. They are everywhere, and remarkably well armed. OK, the police only tend to have a revolver and a menacing truncheon apiece, but the security guards frequently wield long shot-guns or even automatic weapons! It’s a bit disconcerting walking into a department store past a bloke with an Uzi… it really made us wonder how often these things are fired. We saw no crime during our stay but we were perturbed nonetheless.

Anyway, after a day exploring the centre of town we decided to head out to the suburbs by bus to explore some ancient Mexican ruins at Teotihuacán. These impressive (and totally unpronounceable) twin pyramids are only 50km from Mexico City, and easily reached by public bus from the Northern Bus Terminal. They were apparently constructed by the Teotihuacán’s, who were the dominant force in this part of Mexico before the Aztecs arrived. The complex is huge, several square kilometres of stone avenues, plazas, temples and pyramids of all shapes and sizes, but the star attractions are the massive temples of the Sun and Moon. The Pyramid Del Sol is actually the third largest pyramid on Earth, second only to the largest pyramid in Egypt and another Mexican effort. Unlike the Egyptian pyramids at Giza (see www.catch-up-with-the-sun-africa.blogspot.com for photos), the Mexican pyramids at Teotihuacán aren’t perfectly pyramidal but have ‘steps’ or levels at intervals up their sides. This looks a little odd when you see the structures from an angle in the distance, but as you draw closer and look at them perfectly end-on the impression is spectacular.

We spent hours wandering around the complex, climbing up and down hundreds of stone steps as we moved from court to court, and then right up to the top of the Pyramid Del Sol. It is a fantastic site to explore – the only drawback is that you get pestered every few steps by souvenir-selling locals. Just like the Pyramids in Cairo! Some of the Mexican touts had selling pitches we hadn’t heard before though – ‘Senorita, a silver bracelet? Almost free!’. Almost… My favourite was ‘buy for your Mother-in-law’ – the guy who said that was a bit taken aback when we doubled up in laughter and ran away! I wonder what pitches the salesmen around the Maya ruins will try on us over the next few weeks.

Anyway, our stay in Mexico City had to be very brief as we now have just under a month to travel across the country by bus – and there is a lot we plan to see and do on the way. Our first stop is the completely unpronounceable colonial town of Oaxaca, which is apparently one of the best places to sample Mexican Cuisine. After our months of variable South American fare this should be great!

Mexico City Photos

The Central Plaza (or Zocalo) of Mexico City - a huge square surrounded by elegant colonial buildings including this Cathedral that Gary kindly posed in front of. The Plaza is pretty impressive - OK, it's not on the same scale as Tiananmen Square in China or Red Square in Russia, but it certainly beats any other plaza we've seen in the Americas.

This elegant white hall (the Palacio de Bellas Artes) was also in the centre of town - near a pretty tree-filled park with endless rows of market stalls. This is one of the few photos we have of Mexico City where the sky is actually blue - most of the time it was a smoggy grey... Not quite as grey as the skies we saw in China, but the polluted air here made us sneeze and cough a lot more than that in Beijing.

The impressive Pyramid Del Sol with a tiny Gary standing a good 50m in front of the structure to lend a bit of perspective! It's a truly huge pile of rock - with over 300 steps leading to the top. Hard work to climb, but well worth the effort for the glorious views...

... such as this, towards the slightly smaller (and slightly prettier) Pyramid Del Luna! Again we have a very tiny Gary in the foreground to give you an impression of scale - he's standing only one 'level' down from where I'm taking the photo. And this pyramid had lots of 'levels'!

Here we have the elegant court of the smaller (but still massive) Pyramid Del Luna - this Moon Temple had very balanced proportions making it slightly more aesthetically pleasing than its big brother.

And finally, the Pyramid Del Sol from the Pyramid Del Luna - as you can see the Moon Pyramid was well worth the climb for the views too!