From Merida we took a night bus to Palenque, where we arrived after 8 hours of sleep.
We arrived in Juarez around 6/6.30am and the light of the sunrise was yellow and beatiful stretching all the shades, which is strange here since the light is always white and the shades are always short.
The crowded small city of Juarez grows at the border with the ruins, a city of touristic services and place where to eat. Really colourful. We leave the backpack at the bus station at the baggage depot and then wait for the first free combi (small buses that transport local people around the places... you just wait in the middle f the streets and scream your destination!) to the ruins.
We arrived there around 7 but it open at 8 and we had the time to assist the preparation of the small market that borns every morning in the proximity of the ruins entrance. The indios come out from the jungle bushes with all their sacks and prepare little benches with their stuff to sell or things to cook or fuits.
I made a deal for a coconut and the guy made a hole with the machete and put the (ever present) straw in it, so that I could restore from the long night in the bus with a high airconditioning system. This coconut had a special taste to me. We were in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by indios and by this overwhelming nature and I was sipping a real coconut juice.
The ruins of Palenque left me speechless again. I have no words to express my feeling and the jumps by heart did while in this place. The jungle almost 'eats' the ruins and there's a soundtrack of verses from the 'shouting monkey' and the tucanos and other animals. There weren't a lot of turists and we just step over all the ruins possible. From up above the El Palacio there's a view of the valley which really impress the senses.
It's unbelievable those people made all this with no metal supplies or animals or wheels.
El Templo de las Inscriptiones and that of la Cruz are really beautiful.
But the jungle is queen in this environment.
We exit the ruins after a walk in the jungle, passing rios and waterfall and wood bridges and encountering snakes and spiders.
After that we visited the museums and waited for another combi to go back to the bus station. This one was very typical. There were some 4 locals inside and it was literally without door, and the engine was bursting weird noises every 200mts.
It has been a fun ride.
A 5 hours bus to San Cristobal awaited us.
It has been a silenced trip. Andrea took some drugs to refrain the carsickness and started sleeping, and I wasn't able to read or write anything since the road was curves and curves and curves.
So I watched outside.
From the 80 meters of Palenque we reached the 2160 of meters San Cristobal de las Casas, driving throung the rich vegetation of the Lacadona forest.
I was impressed. Going up was just green and blue, the forest and the sky. After a couple of hours the view was incredible... the valleys down there and the Altos on the other side.
We encountered a lot of small cabañas villages (small in order of 4-5 cabañas) where the indios live.
It was Sunday and the children were mostly dressed with a white shirt and almost looking elegant. The women all wearing the traditional clothes (even if they dress like this always) and family going from one 'village' to the next one where the church was with all the little coloured flags of the fiesta.
Outside some of this 'villages' coffe was toasting in the sun over white sheets and women were washing clothes and men working the red earth.
Children playing almost nude in the red earth.
I've been watching outside and 'inside' and there's a lot to think about.
We finally reached San Cristobal and found an hotel where we had a shower..... shower, shower.
San Cristobal is really beautiful; a small mountain town with a lot of attention for the indios. Here is the 'motherland' of the EZLN and I also came to know that El Sup Marcos was here yesterday but I missed him because I was doing the laundry! I was almost killing myself, but I didn't know about it if not after the laundry!!!!!! Pretty humiliating!
By the way we ate in the Centro Social where he did the conference, so I felt a little closer to the 'situation'.
Until last night we were thinking about going back to the Riviera Maya through Guatemala and Belize but checking the bus schedule it would have meant to spend 4 nights before the ocean whitout really visiting those places and... we are way too tired to wait 4 more days. So we decided to do the crazy thing and take another bus (this time it's a GranLux one... so Andrea is happy:-)) that we'll take us to Tulum in only 15 hours:-)
I know it's crazy but after a lot of asking and reading guides and planning sounded like the best thing.
Tomorrow morning we should be able to enjoy the Caribbean Mexican Beaches:-))
This is really a beautiful trip!
