Pictures!

Cancun beach, complete with perfect white sand, terquoise ocean, and miles and miles of monsterous hotels.

Pelicans in Cancun

Bimbo bread products!! I'm still working on the ultimate picture of a big mexican in a bimbo football shirt.

Rowan looking terrified with some random mariachis we met in Tulum

Me looking marginally less terrified but marginally more felt up by said mariachis.... not entirely sure how that worked out.

Beast of an iguana. There are lots of those :)

Ruins on the coast at Tulum.... and a palm tree!

Ruins on the coast at Tulum.... and a palm tree... and a tourist!

Another amazing iguana at the Tulum ruins!

The beach at Tulum... so pretty :)

Right that's it for now with pics. Took me hours and hours to get these up!!

but yeh, since i last wrote we went snorkelling in Tulum. It was cloudy and wavey and we were convinced that we wouldn´t see anything, but went along anyway as we´d already paid the deposit. But in the end it was beautiful, with hundreds of different kinds of fish and coral. Beautiful that is until i was sick over the side of the boat on the way back to shore because of the rocky sea!

That night we went on to Palenque which is in the jungle. The bus was over night and we were dreading the pending night of unconfortable rough bus ride... but in fact the bus was so so comfortable! we had massive seats that went back to almost horizontal, and films with little headphones.

However the cabins that we´d booked into had quadrupled their prices since appearing in the lonely planet so we ended up trekking down the road to find somewhere else. The place we found was 'elementos naturales' which was completely bizarre. It was run by an old guy called Soloman. We still can't decide if he´s an alcoholic or just completely mad. The cabin was basic... thatched roof, no lock from the inside, no door between the beds and bathroom and an impressive zoo of bugs, ants and gecos inside and out. Which for 15 pounds for the two of us breakfast included isn´t too bad really. But then we got to breakfast not expecting much and we got toast, marmalade and coffee. Then a bowl of fresh fruit with yoghurt and granola. Then eggs, more toast, and fresh fruit juice!

On our first night we went down the road to a bar which had great live music and some impressive salsa dancing. But then there was a huge thunder storm that lasted about 7 hours (i.e. for the rest of the night) somewhat terrifying when in a little straw hut!

The next morning we went to the ruins that Palenque is famous for and they were absolutely stunning. The area that the ruins are in is massive and there are still carvings surviving on the site. We spent a happy couple of hours wandering and climbing up temples and following jungle paths to find more ruins.

The next morning we came here to San Cristobal and arrived after about 6 hours of hairpin bends about 2000m higher. It´s a very pretty colonial town, where we have managed to do very little! Yesterday we went into town to an amazing saturday market with endless mounds of random fruit and vegetables (and anything else you could possibly want). In the evening we went out to a bar with some people from the hostel with more live music and impressive local salsa dancers.

I have to say that although it´s sometimes a bit cold, it´s quite a relief to be away from the relentless heat and humidity of the beaches and jungle! So i think we´re going to stick around for a bit and do some tours from here. It´s also interesting as it´s much more indigenous, lots of people in traditional dress and speaking indigeous languages. We also went to the mayan medicine museum and therefore know the medical benefits of skunk urine and hummingbird flesh.... enlightening....

anyway more pics and news soon!

lots of love x x x