USA Blog Part 1 – Weeks 1 & 2

I was so excited as we set down at San Francisco airport as I’ve been wanting to do an American road trip for so long and finally the day had come.  Also being back in an English speaking developed country after 7 months was going to be so nice.  We arrived at midnight so we’d booked a hostel in town to guarantee ourselves a bed for the night.  This was one of only a couple of reservations we’d made throughout the last 2 months which is a complete turnabout for me, Mrs Organised - Jinny you’d be proud of me!

I fell in love with San Francisco straight away and it would be a great place to live.  The seaside location, the mild climate, the sights, the shops, the restaurants and the atmosphere had me hooked.  The only downside we’ve noticed are the number of homeless which is a result of both the mild climate and the closure of all the mental hospitals c.30 years ago.  So as you walk around you are regularly asked for money, although not in an aggressive way.  There’s even a guy by Fisherman’s Wharf who hides behind a big tree branch and jumps out in order to provide some entertainment for a donation – he’s known locally as the “Bush Man”.

Breakfast in our hostel was self-made pancakes – they provided the pancake mix and syrup, and you cooked.  Le Roux and I were entertained by the very poor efforts of other guests – somehow they managed to turn a pancake into unbrowned mush which looked very unappetising.  Many were looking on enviously as we turned out some pretty decent looking pancakes!

We spent our first day catching up on some chores, including some much needed shopping – I was like a kid in a sweet shop with proper western clothes shops to browse around!  I also had lunch with an old work colleague, Simon, who has now moved to San Fran - the city is known as San Fran not SF for short.  It was great catching up with an old friend, especially as he was the first person from home that I have seen in 7 months.  

Our 2^nd day was spent doing touristy things such as a walking tour of China Town, the Coit Tower, and the three major hills which afforded us great views over the city and of Bay and Golden Gate bridges, as well as Alcatraz.  I have to admit to cheating and not walking up them all as we hopped on the Cable Car to travel up and down the iconic steep streets of the city.  It was interesting to see that it is still turned around by hand on a turntable at the end of the line.  In the evening we went to the cinema to see the King’s Speech, which was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as we hadn’t been to the cinema since we saw Harry Potter in Santiago, 5 months previously.  The only disappointment were the snacks which were not as good as in the UK or in Chile – no pick ‘n’ mix, no icecream counter and no sweet popcorn!

Unfortunately it was time to leave the city and begin our actual road trip, but luckily we were coming back in 3 weeks time so we could tick off a few more sights then.  We’d finally made the decision to rent rather than buy a car as the cost was pretty similar and it would be less hassle to hire one, so we picked up our Jeep Liberty and headed to the outdoor shop on our way out of the city to pick up a few extra bits of equipment now that we don’t have to carry everything.  I decided to invest in a better, thicker camping mat and it was the best purchase I’ve made in a long time – I actually get a good night’s sleep in our tent now, which is a good thing as we’re doing a lot more of it given accommodation is so expensive in the US.

We headed south from San Francisco and picked up Highway 1, also known as the famous Pacific Highway, with good reason as the views of the coastline and ocean are spectacular.  First stop was Monterey, set on a lovely bay.  We drove around the headland stopping every few yards for photos.  At Lover’s Point we watched on, chuckling to ourselves, as this cheeky squirrel tried to steal a piece of chicken from a sleeping vagrant – although we were rooting for the squirrel it was unlucky as the guy woke up in time to shoo it away.  We also saw lots of friendly fat ground squirrels and playful sea otters.  The scenic 17 mile drive through Pebble Beach, also on the headland, caused us a few issues as we managed to get a bit lost even with a map, but we did manage to see the Lone Cyprus Tree and Bird Rock as well as some picture postcard coastline. 

We camped at Veterans Memorial Park Campground in Monterey and were horrified to find that it cost $27 for the night for a tent spot – twice what we’d been paying for hostels and hotels in Central America!  Le Roux cooked up a seriously spicy chicken stew for dinner, after we’d argued about which chilli to buy in the supermarket and I lost - he promised not to put too much in and that he’d taste it before adding more. It did not work out well as he’d picked a scotch bonnet chilli so even a quarter of it was too much, and I sweated and practically cried while eating my dinner - I had to give up in the end!  That night we left our washing up to dry on our picnic table and a naughty raccoon stole our wooden spoon. 

We visited Monterey Bay Aquarium which was fantastic – it was huge with all manner of different species of sea life.  It took us ages to wander around all of the tanks and exhibits, snapping away with the camera.  Although we missed the otters and penguins being fed, we did see the diver hand feed the sharks with squid which was pretty cool.  My favourite creatures were the jelly fish, the sea stars and the sea horses which were really so interesting and weird to look at.

Next stop was Carmel-by- the Sea, a charming rich seaside town.  We stopped in at the Mission San Carlos De Borromeo De Carmelo (aka Carmel Mission) which is one of the prettiest missions in California and so it provided me with yet more great photo opportunities.  Unfortunately due to time constraints we didn’t have time to explore the town so we did a quick driving tour of the town and beach instead – very pretty with lots of huge expensive ocean front houses and fancy shops.

We had hoped to drive all the way down the coast to LA on the Pacific Highway, but unfortunately due to a few mud slides onto the road and a rock fall out from under the road, we weren’t able to make it to Big Sur.  We drove inland down Highway 101 instead and looped back up Highway 1 a little way to visit the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas and Hearst Castle.  Unfortunately we couldn’t see Hearst Castle as all the tours were sold out, but we did get to see lots of massive female elephant seals with their young pups. They were packed onto the beach, jostling and wriggling in tight groupings.  As you’d expect we spent a while taking lots of close-up photos of them – Le Roux loves their eyes and got a great picture of one seal looking straight at him with its doe eyes.  We camped at nearby San Simeon in the state park and we were even more horrified at the cost as it was $35 per night for a tent and you had to pay extra for a hot shower - all we got was a patch of grass, a picnic table and the use of a toilet!

Le Roux’s friend Neil had recommended a stop-off at the Madonna Inn on our way south towards Los Angeles so we pulled off the highway at this crazy place and were dumbfounded by the kitschness and OTT nature of the hotel – a very bizarre place!  The pecan buns were amazing though and we were gutted they only had one left which we had to share.

Next stop on the drive south was the Santa Maria valley for a spot of wine tasting.  As Le Roux wasn’t feeling great he kindly offered to drive which allowed me to indulge in a few different wines.  I’d picked the Foxen winery from the ones listed in the book as it sounded nice, and it was.  However, I hadn’t realised that it was one of the ones featured in the movie Sideways so I had my photo taken in the same spot as the guys in the film – cheesy but fun.  As part of the tasting I got to keep my glass, so in amongst all our plastic hard-wearing camping gear I now have a glass wine tasting glass.  Amazingly it is still in one piece and I feel quite proper drinking wine out of it at picnic tables in our various campsites!

From Santa Maria we drove onto Solvang which is a very OTT Danish style town, overrun with Japanese tourists - I wasn’t a fan of the place.  However, we hunted around to find the icecream shop we’d been told to try and finally found it.  Le Roux made the mistake of asking for 2 scoops and ended up with the biggest icecream I’ve ever seen.  I only had one scoop but I still struggled to finish it and I can safely say that was the first time I have ever had to throw away icecream!  It’s one of my favourite foods, but I just could not eat it all and Le Roux definitely didn’t finish his 2 scoops.  American portions are way too big and we need to remember to order one between the two of us in future.

After the wine and the icecream we rolled in to Los Angeles.  Le Roux’s good friend Hendrik (aka Krokkie), his wife Carol and their little boy Jaco kindly agreed to let us stay for a few nights.  It was so lovely to stay with friends in their home after being in hostels and campsites for so long - they made us feel so welcome.  Krokkie cooked up some delicious lamb chops on the BBQ to go with the good bottle of red we’d picked up at the winery.  It was great to have lamb, my favourite meat, as it had been ages since we’d come across any. 

We spent our time in LA doing some very touristy things and we loved every moment!  We drove over the hills to the Malibu coast and enjoyed the pretty coast and the massive celebrity mansions, before accidentally driving through Beverley Hills, having missed Sunset Boulevard!  We eventually made it to Hollywood Boulevard which we strolled along, gazing at the stars in the pavement as well as at the Chinese Theatre.  The Hollywood sign was a must so we headed up to the Griffith Observatory to get a good view of it and we were also rewarded with a great vista across the city which is a vast urban sprawl, home to 10 million people.  

Next stop was the Warner Bros Studio where we did the excellent tour – we saw all sorts of cool things including the real bat mobile, Harry Potter costumes and props, the set of Ellen’s chat show, the Friends coffee shop set, the outdoor street sets, the largest prop department in the world and the tallest sound studio in the business.  Whilst looking round the Harry Potter memorabilia, we were sorted by the actual sorting hat used in the first movie which was cool – I was a Gryffindor but Le Roux came out as an evil Slytherin!  

Our final activity in LA was a hike through Malibu Creek State Park with Krokkie, Carol and Jaco – a beautiful area not far from their apartment and it was nice to see that LA is not just an urban sprawl but has lovely green areas too.

We bid farewell to the Tredouxs and headed off across California, into Arizona.  Our destination was The Grand Canyon.  The drive itself was great as we travelled along historic route 66 and the scenery was fantastic - we stopped so often for photos!  We passed through beautiful mountains and some classic themed gold mining towns, one of which even had donkeys roaming freely on the streets.

We left balmy LA wearing t-shirts and flip flops and arrived in Williams 9 hours later to find 3ft of snow and freezing temperatures!  There was no way we could camp so we had to shell out for a motel.  My vision of the Grand Canyon was hot, sunny, dusty and vast.  We got sunny and vast, but it was snowy and cold but actually very pretty sprinkled with snow.  The highlight of our visit was the helicopter ride over the canyon – it was awesome as the Americans would say.  The views from above were truly spectacular and we really got to appreciate how massive the canyon is.  I’d not been in a helicopter before so that was exciting too.  After the helicopter ride we drove along the south rim and stopped for a picnic by Duck Rock – a great view while we ate our sandwiches and drank our cuppa soups to warm up!  We even saw a coyote in the forest.  A few too many tour buses of Japanese tourists were hogging all the photo spots though!  Having taken about a million photos between us, none of which really do it justice, we headed off to Cameron for the night, with a view to visiting the north rim the next day.  Our plans were thwarted though as the only motel in Cameron was far too expensive for our budget and the north rim was closed for winter!  Instead, we headed off to Tuba City on the Indian Reservation where we’d located a cheaper motel for the night.  After a long day of sightseeing we could have done with a beer, but apparently there’s no alcohol on the reservation so we had to be content with the biggest sodas ever!

The next morning we headed off to Bryce Canyon National Park via Route 89A, a scenic alternative to Route 89, which took us from Arizona into Utah. We pulled into Buffalo Bills in a little town en route for a late lunch, as we’d read about rattlesnake and rabbit sausages which we were keen to try.  However, the restaurant was only open for dinner so we drove away hungry and disappointed!

All of the drive was pretty, but the best part was the last few miles through Red Canyon which contains amazing red rock formations called hoodoos.  This was just the beginning though as Bryce Canyon itself was a huge amphitheatre filled with hoodoos – so impressive and very pretty sprinkled with snow.  In some ways we liked it more than the Grand Canyon.  We’d been told sunrise was at 7am so we got up early and headed into the park to the key viewpoint over the amphitheatre but the sun was already up so we’d braved the cold for no particular reason!  We decided to warm up at the Lodge while having some coffee and porridge.  Luckily we’d been served before the power failed as some diners were turned away hungry!  It was also disappointing that so much of the park was closed either due to snow or the risk of falling rocks, but we enjoyed the short hike we did under sunny clear blue skies.  We hiked down into the canyon on one of the few trails that was open and the hoodoos were even more impressive from below.  There was one called “Queen Victoria” as it looked a bit like the statue of her in London. 

As the weather forecast predicted a low of -10C that night I refused to camp!  We ended up in a lovely motel which was famous for its pies.  We were expected a nice meat pie, but actually it served up fruit and cream pies in various flavours.  We tried the boysenberry pie and the blueberry banana cream pie – both delicious but very bad for my waistline!  Breakfast wasn’t included so we decided to toast bagels on our little gas stoves, but as it was actually snowing outside we decided to do it in our room, however, it wasn’t long before we’d set off the smoke alarm and had to brave the cold to finish the toasting!

TO BE CONTINUED...

Central America Summary

San Jose – Tortuguero – Quepos – Manuel Antonio – Monteverde – Arenal – Cano Negro – La Fortuna – San Carlos – El Castillo – Altagracia – Granada – Lago de Apoyo – Managua – Lago de Yajoa – Copan Ruinas – Antigua – Lago de Atitlan – Semuc Champey – Rio Dulce – Livingston – Sittee River – Glover’s Reef – San Ignacio – Tikal – Flores – Palenque – San Cristobel – Mexico City

We’ve now completed our 2 month tour through Central America taking in six countries and as I did for South America, I wanted to look back on all that we’ve seen, done and experienced along the way.

Best Food

Unlike South America, there weren’t any particular stand out food moments, but we did have some nice meals along the way:

·         The chocolate cake at D&D Brewery was so moist and chocolatey we had to have a slice each night we were there.  I even got the recipe off the owner!

·         The massive river prawns we had in El Castillo were memorable as neither of us have seen any that big before and they were juicy and tasty.

·         The expensive Italian dinner we had in Flores was particularly nice – Le Roux had a succulent, non-chewy steak and I had succulent large prawns.

·         I have to say that the chalupas we made at our Mexican cookery lesson in San Cristobel were really tasty and we’ll definitely be making them again!

·         Best local food has to be the Honduran feasts cooked up by the ladies at Finca El Cisne.  We got to try all sorts of different dishes made from fresh home grown ingredients.

 Worst Food

·         Top of the list was the empanada we bought from a cafe in San Carlos in Nicaragua.  It was the greasiest thing ever and hardly had any filling.  It was so bad that we both threw it away after just a couple of bites.

·         Following close behind was our first meal in Guatemala.  The shuttle bus between Copan Ruinas and Antigua stopped at a restaurant on route for breakfast which comprised a very skinny omelette with cold ham and unmelted cheese in the middle, a dodgy hot dog, a lump of funny white cheese and a scoop of salty solid refried beans – horrible!

Favourite Country

Guatemala – we saw such a variety of things across the country from a beautiful colonial city to a serene lake surrounded by volcanoes, colourful markets, pretty limestone pools, extensive caves, a gorgeous river and last but not least, world class ruins in an amazing setting. 

Best City

It is difficult to choose between Antigua in Guatemala and San Cristobel in Mexico.  Both are lovely colonial cities with such character and interesting architecture, but on balance I think Antigua was my favourite.  The main square was really pretty and there were interesting ruins all over the city.  With plenty of good restaurants and bars, and the backdrop of volcanoes surrounding the city, it was a great place to hang out for a few days.

Best Village

3 hours down the San Juan River from Lake Nicaragua was the little village of El Castillo which we fell in love with.  You can only reach it by water and there are no cars, only bicycles and horses.  Lots of the houses are built on stilts over the river and there were many loose animals wandering around the town.  The Spanish fort on the hill overlooking the village provided lovely views.  It was such a relaxing place.

Worst Town

This award goes to San Carlos in Nicaragua.  We stayed in what was supposedly a good hotel, but there was no running water most of the time and the room was horrible – more like a prison cell!  The town had no redeeming features and it suffered regular power cuts during our time there.  We couldn’t wait to escape down the river to El Castillo!

Best Natural Wonder

·         Glover’s Reef in Belize was so beautiful – it truly felt like a little piece of paradise.  The palm tree covered, white sandy island was surrounded by an ocean of several vivid shades of blue which was home to a huge variety of sealife.  We really didn’t want to leave!

·         Semuc Champey in Guatemala – a series of limestone pools set in mountainous forest was also very pretty.

Best Manmade Sight

·         This award goes to Tikal as the ruins were very impressive, with the very high temples, quite a few of which you could climb. Also the jungle setting was beautiful and the array of wildlife that lived there including our favourites, monkeys and toucans, was great.

Favourite Activity

Again, we’ve done some amazing things over the last 2 months including:

·         Snorkelling in the Caribbean amongst the pretty coral and abundant sealife.

·         Horseriding at Finca El Cisne in Honduras was great fun as we actually got to ride the horses rather than just following the one in front, and the farm was really pretty.

·         Zip-lining in Costa Rica – whizzing along through the rainforest with views of the Arenal volcano and lake, and one of the seven cables was 750m long.

Worst Journey

There are a number of contenders for this category:

·         The minibus shuttle from Semuc Champey to Rio Dulce in Guatemala was one of the worst journeys we had to endure.  Crammed in with us and 9 other tourists were a local guy and his several hundred eggs.  The eggs got two seats to themselves while the local guy hung out of the window for 3 hours, blocking the air flow so the chicken s**t smell built up.  The stink, along with the bumpy, twisty roads made half the bus feel travel sick and the little girl in front of me actually threw up.  The driver exacerbated the issue by going over some bumps too fast and some of the eggs escaped their packaging and smashed on the floor of the bus causing the smell to worsen.  We then had to try and get our rucksacks out of the way in the limited space.  All of this combined with the lack of legroom and uncomfortable seats, meant that we couldn’t wait to get out of the bus in Rio Dulce.

·         Another terrible journey in Guatemala was the return trip from Lago de Atitlan to Antigua.  It was a 5 hour journey that felt a lot longer!  The bus seats were so small that Le Roux and I couldn’t fit properly on a double seat – one of us had to sit forward to accommodate our shoulders and Le Roux could only get one buttock on the seat.  The legroom was totally inadequate and I spent the whole journey with my knees wedged into the back of the seat in front which had wires in it that cut into me.  When we reached Antigua and they said we needed to get on yet another bus, we made our escape and walked the last leg to our hostel.

·         We put ourselves through a hair-raising experience on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua by hiring a motorbike which was definitely not appropriate for the rough terrain.  We were fine on the paved roads, but as soon as we hit the very rough rocky, undulating roads leading to the waterfall, we had issues.  The bike was low to the ground and had road tires and didn’t cope well with the bad surface.  I hung on to the bike and Le Roux for dear life as he struggled with the bike over the bumps.  We had further issues when a pig ran out onto the road in front of us causing us to swerve and break suddenly.  It was the least relaxing day ever!

·         The boat ride between Livingston in Guatemala and Punta Gorda in Belize was memorable for all the wrong reasons.  We were in a small open wooden boat and the sea was choppy. As we raced along we bounced over the waves causing me to feel sea sick and as we slammed down after each wave the base of my spine smashed into the hard seat.  To top it off we got wet too as the waves splashed over the sides.  I was so relieved when we reached dry land!

·         The final contender is the car journey from Arenal to Cano Negro which included 35km of dirt road littered with potholes.  We arrived at our destination completely shaken up and exhausted by all the bumps and swerving.

Funniest Moment

I think the funniest moment was watching the white faced monkeys and raccoons steal food from unsuspecting tourists on the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park.  They were so clever that they could unzip back packs to remove picnic items and the monkeys even managed to open bags that had been tied up in the trees to keep them safe.

Scariest Moment

This award would have gone to the water caves in Semuc Champey, but I was so scared of the idea of water in caves with only a candle for light that I didn’t even do them!  So I have come up with a couple of other scary moments:

·         When we got off the international bus from Nicaragua to Honduras in a little place called La Guama we were pretty unnerved.  The last thing the bus conductor said to us was watch out for the bad boys hanging around and given it was dark and we needed to catch a local bus or find a taxi, this made us feel particularly uneasy.  Things got worse when we discovered there were no buses, no taxis and not even a hotel we could stay in for the night.  Luckily the police were attending a non-serious traffic accident and so we asked for their help.  The local mayor also came over and persuaded the police officers to drive us the 12km to the D&D Brewery by Lago de Yajoa.  We were very relieved to arrive at the hotel safe and sound!

·         A close encounter with a barracuda while snorkelling on my own in Belize was pretty scary as Jared and Katie had returned the previous day with tales of a hair-raising moment when one would not leave them alone.  Luckily for me the barracuda left after eyeing me up briefly.

·         After 5 months without a haircut, I decided I would have to be brave and get it done.  I risked it in La Fortuna in Costa Rica in the hope that because of the number of rich American tourists there, there would be a reasonable salon with an English speaking stylist.  I was recommended a place by the tourist office, but a random guy in there had to translate what I wanted for the stylist.  In the end, the haircut wasn’t perfect but not bad, and it was cheap!

Favourite Animal

Monkeys and toucans are still top of my list, but in Costa Rica we came across a new animal – the sloth – which I really like.  There are two types and we’ve managed to see both in the wild as well as in the rescue centre.  They are funny looking creatures that live up in the trees all the time apart from a weekly toilet trip down to the ground!

Best Wildlife Encounter

The sighting of the elusive Quetzal in the cloud forest in Monteverde was such a great moment.  I am normally very bad at spotting things, even when they are clearly pointed out to me and so when I managed to clap eyes on the very bird we were desperately trying to see I was really proud of myself.  Our decision not to hire a guide proved to be the right one, and all the twitchers with their guides who hadn’t seen it were very envious of us.  Le Roux even managed to capture it on camera so we have evidence of the sighting!

Most Disappointing

The most disappointing thing for us was the fact that every active volcano wasn’t actually active when we were visiting.  In Costa Rica, the Arenal Volcano has been spewing out hot lava since 1968 but stopped in September 2010, 5 months before we got there.  Also, in Guatemala the volcanoes around Antigua were not active while we were there, so we haven’t had the chance to poke a stick in hot lava.  Our quest for an active volcano continues...

Least Privacy

I forgot to include a worst toilet category for South America, for which there were many contenders, but I have a new category for Central America – least privacy.

·         The room we stayed in at D&D Brewery had the bathroom in the tiny bedroom, with only a shower curtain to pull around yourself while sitting on the loo.  Not quite sure why anyone would actually design and build a brick building like that!

·         The second similar instance was at the guesthouse at Sittee River.  Our little wooden cabin on stilts only had thin curtains to separate the bathroom from the bedroom, and the top half of all the walls was wire mesh, with curtains on only some of the windows.  So it wasn’t only lack of privacy from each other by from people outside too!

Most Obnoxious Person

On the whole we’ve met many nice, friendly people, both locals and fellow travellers.  However, a couple of people have stuck on our minds for all the wrong reasons.

·         The first obnoxious person we met was in the hostel in San Jose.  He was an older Belgian guy who was friends with the owner and his family.  He started talking to me despite it being obvious I was in the middle of doing something and wasn’t up for a conversation, and then he wouldn’t leave me alone.  He became drunker and drunker and made all sorts of racist and sexist remarks and on the whole was a pretty nasty person.  As soon as I’d eaten my dinner I headed back to our room to escape, as that seemed the only way out, as he kept following me around the common areas.

·         The other obnoxious person we came across was a red neck American in a bar in Rio Dulce, Guatemala.  We had been chatting with various people in the bar and I asked if this one guy had a boat as most of the Americans there own yachts which they have moored in Rio Dulce for the winter.  The guy across from him, laughed at this and said he used to.  It turned out to be a crazy story as the guy had just broken up his 4 year relationship with a local lady and she had in turn burnt and sunk his boat, which he’d just had done up.  The term he used to describe his ex girlfriend defied belief – a n***er bitch - I didn’t think people would actually use the “n” word to describe a coloured person especially with people they’ve just met in a bar - incredible.

Worst Night’s Sleep

The worst night’s sleep we got, excluding night buses which are always terrible, was at the Jungle Palace in El Panchan near Palenque.  It had nothing to do with the room or bed, but with the noisy howler monkey who took up residence in the tree above our little hut.  It managed to keep up its spooky loud howling for a large chunk of the night and we got up the next morning pretty sleep deprived.

Biggest Regret

My biggest regret is not taking the time at the beginning of our trip to do a crash course in Spanish.  In hindsight we have missed an opportunity here not only to learn a new skill, but I think we would have had more interesting interactions with locals had we been able to converse with them.

Things I Will Miss

·         Fresh tropical fruit – so ripe, sweet and juicy!

·         Random sightings of tucans and monkeys

·         Friendly locals

·         Warm climate

·         Glover’s Reef scenery and lifestyle

·         Colourful cheap markets

Things I Will Definitely Not Miss

·         Having to put toilet paper in a bin and not down the toilet

·         Cold showers

·         Bad food – there was so little variety and far too many bad meals!

·         Ridiculously small and uncomfortable bus seats

·         Potholes and speed bumps

·         Lugging my backpack around on buses

·         Spanish TV – there are TVs everywhere and they are always on loud on the terrible soap operas even if no one is watching

·         Stray, dodgy looking dogs

Mexico

In order to get from Flores to Palenque in Mexico, we again braved a shuttle bus as everything we’d read about using public transport made it sound like a nightmare.  Even by shuttle the journey took 9 hours and involved 2 buses and a boat!  We had a slightly nervous moment at Mexican immigration as Le Roux’s South African passport caused a few issues, but eventually he was let in – phew!

We stayed in El Panchan, a little village in the jungle 5 miles down the road from Palenque, as recommended in the guide book.  We found a great jungle cabin right by a little river for a bargain price.  There was wildlife all around us and we were woken in the small hours by a particularly active and noisy howler monkey who’d taken a liking to the tree above our cabin.  He managed to keep up his howling for several hours and we didn’t get a great night’s sleep.  Groggily crawling out of bed in the morning we stepped onto our deck to see a couple of herons fishing in the little river, so I quickly grabbed my camera.

We spent a few hours wandering around the ruins at Palenque, taking in the various palaces and temples.  The temples are not as tall as Tikal but more restoration work has been carried out on the buildings and they are bigger with many more carvings and inscriptions.  All around the site were souvenir vendors with their wares laid out on blankets.  I really liked the limestone mouldings but buying one would not really help my luggage weight issue so I had to be content with photos instead.  I also developed an obsession with Mayan symbols which are so lovely.  I took so many close up photos and even bought a little carved stone of my Mayan birth sign.

Our next stop was Misol-Ha, a waterfall 45 minutes away, which you could walk behind.  This was only a quick stop though on the way to Agua Azul, which was a beautiful series of limestone pools, a bit like Semuc Champey in Guatemala.  We spent 3 hours here wandering all the way up the hill as far as we could, before taking a swim in some of the pools – very refreshing on a hot day! Le Roux also couldn’t resist the rope swing. 

There were heaps of vendors all the way along the path selling both souvenirs and food.  We succumb to the wafts of empanada and sampled a few from various stalls.  The fruit stalls were selling mango lollies which the ladies made by carving the fruit but still leaving it attached to the stone – pretty impressive as I have yet to cut up a mango in an aesthetically pleasing way despite trying many different ways.

When we were dropped back in El Panchan, we walked back to our cabin a different way and came across a much nicer restaurant with a wood fired pizza oven – it wasn’t hard to decide what we were going to have for dinner that night!  Very nice it was too when it finally arrived as the waiter thought we were sharing one between two and didn’t request mine – he obviously didn’t know me!

From Palenque we were headed for San Cristobel.  Luckily for my back and knees, the buses in Mexico are proper coaches so we had a far more comfortable journey than the ones we’d suffered in Guatemala.  San Cristobel was a lovely colonial city, much like Antigua in Guatemala.  We found a lovely hostel only a few blocks from the main square and we spent much of our time in the city wandering around soaking up the atmosphere and the architecture.  We climbed various hills and steps and were rewarded with some lovely views over the city.  

We also stumbled upon a cookery school so we decided to have a 2hr lesson in cooking Mexican cuisine.  We had a great time with our tutor even though she spoke very little English.  The lesson got off to a great start with a shot of something tequila like which put fire in our bellies! We then made chalupas which looked very simple, but tasted amazing.  They were fried small tortillas topped with refried beans, grated beetroot and carrot, shredded lettuce, Mexican salsa, cream and guacamole – so good and pretty healthy!  We’ll definitely be making them again.  

We also tried various other Mexican dishes while we were in the city including pozole – a meat and corn soup; sope – a soft small tortilla topped with salad and meat; and mole chicken – a rich dark sauce made with chocolate and spices.  We also succumbed to the traditional Mexican sweet treat – a churros – deep fried batter filled with a flavoured sweet sauce – yummy but so naughty! 

San Cristobel had more than its share of jewellery shops and I was somewhat taken by the Mayan symbol jewellery and after dragging Le Roux into the shop about 5 times, he bought me a lovely bracelet for my birthday and I got some earrings too – Dad – they’re from you for my birthday!

After a couple of nights we had to move on to Mexico City for our flight to San Francisco.  Our last long bus journey – a 14 hour overnight job which we survived, although we didn’t get much sleep as the bus kept stopping at check points throughout the night so various officials could board the bus and request details from passengers.

Mexico City was a pleasant surprise.  For some reason I had expected a dirty, crowded, unsafe place, but it was pretty clean, spacious and actually quite nice.  We didn’t have much time there though, but we did manage to walk to the main park and visit the Anthropology Museum which was great.  We only saw a few of the exhibitions though as there were so many.  We picked out the Maya one, along with the Introduction to Anthropology, and the Aztecs.  It was all very interesting and they have some amazingly preserved artefacts, including the jade burial mask of one of the rulers of Palenque – Jaguar Serpent II.  

Lunch in the museum cafe was also an entertaining experience as the resident squirrels leapt from the trees onto the umbrellas and peered over the edge, eyeing up our lunch!

Our two months in Central America had come to an end and it was time to move on to our US road trip.  We had mixed feelings about leaving as we ran out of time to do much in Mexico, but we were really looking forward to being in a developed country again after 7 months in 3^rd world countries, and to not having to lug our back packs around on buses.  We need to come back and visit many more places in Mexico to get a proper feel of the place so I can’t tick this country off my list just yet, but what we did squeeze into 5 days was lovely and left us wanting more.