Palenque: Part 2
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2008
1
11
37
Trip End
Jan 01, 2009
Palenque, Mexico
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Joining up with our neighbours in the jungle, we were now a traveling party of 7 so it made bargaining for a shared taxi much easier and meant we didn't have to go through the the tacky tour operators. We agreed a price of 150 pesos each (about 9euros) for a day´s travel wherever we wanted and to stay as long as we wanted. A little steep but it was still cheaper than the organised tours.
So we set off with Javier our driver for the waterfall in Misal-Ha and then the lake of Agua Clara. It only took about 30 minutes to get to the waterfall and it was worth the wait, cos the view was spectacular. A massive 35 foot drop into a decent sized natural pool at the bottom. No sooner had we arrived, when we were in jumping off the rocks and in swimming. Most of the package tours were offering to spend 30 minutes here, we managed three hours! There were little caves and alcoves all hidden away in the rock work and were amazing to discover.
After the three hours here we stopped for some Mexican roast chicken on one of the highway restaurants and Eoin discovered that he had a sunglasses twin in Sheila, and I also made the step of wearing Eoin's sunnies, for the one and only time (photo evidence attached!!). He's been getting a lot of stick about them (quite rightly in my opinion), but fair play to him, he's sticking to his guns with them!
From here we headed off to the beautiful surroundings of Aqua Clara, and saw the most unreal blue coloured water in the lake. Complete with homemade rafts and and massive suspension bridge (which wasn't the safest, by the way), we were in our element here.
We swam for a good bit when a completely unexpected tropical shower (it was that fine rain that soaks you through!!) started and went on for about 20 minutes, It was an incredible feeling. Any of the locals that were in the water, jumped out but we stayed in, and let them look at us in amazement. It looked like we were in a massive pool of boiling water cos the rain was hitting the water so hard. The three girls decided to get a raft back to the other side and back to the minibus, but us men decided to walk barefoot through through half an hours worth of insects, muck, sticks, stones....everything. I'd love to say we were like amazon warriors ploughing through it but in reality there was a lot of f**ks, b****cks and s**te to be heard as we cut our feet and our egos!!
Back on the minibus with Javier he flew home with all the windows open so we could dry off, and I mean flew home, he was easily doing double the speed limit, but great craic all the same.
Once back on the ranch, it was a big dinner, drinks and smiles all round to close off a fantastic day. Eoin, Bill, Myself and Barney decided we'd be leaving Mexico the day after and heading for Guatemala, with the girls' holiday over. So we couldn't have left Mexico on a better note. After such a slow start in the country and getting the feeling that nearly every town looked the same we finally had some great memories to take with us. I can only speak for myself on this one and say although I enjoyed Mexico, it won´t be somewhere I'll be in too much of a rush to go back to. "Never say never " and all that, but I for one was looking forward to seeing another country.
Will be back soon with pics from our current location of Flores in Guatemala and news of yet another another mammoth road trip!
Talk soon
James
Comments
Women!!!
Well done fellas - knew yiz had it in ya!
Love the group photo..there he is going for the old ''I'll just put my arm here for the photo'' effort. Good man Eoin...keep tryin!
That bridge looked scary. If that bird in the red had of started shakin it whilst I was on it she'd have been goin over the edge. She was fit though, so hmmmm...
Almost like Torc waterfall!
Looks like you found another paradise spot.