This trip will be a test of endurance, in many ways. See the first leg of my journey here!
Itinerary:
Day 4 Recap: Public bus from Mérida to Palenque
Day 5 (Palenque): Rainforest hike, Maya ruins of Lakam Ha, karaoke
Day 6 (Palenque): Misol Ha waterfall
Day 7 (Flores): Bus to Mexico-Guatemala border, then Flores
My body is a machine that turns water into sweat. The testosterone blocker Americans get is a diuretic, which is inconvenient under normal circumstances, but actually dangerous here, so I’ve been reducing my dose and compensating with electrolyte tablets. Even still, it’s a struggle to stay hydrated with this level of activity and humidity. But it’s all worth it to see the immense amount of green here, as we’re near the end of Mexico’s rainy season. Our bus ride was mostly views from a highway, but out in every direction were more trees and vegetation than I’ve ever seen before!
The “public bus” was basically like a train – assigned seats, comfortable recliners, and multiple stops for people to get on/off. The first two legs (~4 hours) I had strangers for seat buddies, but then two seats to myself the rest of the 8-hour journey. Also, they played a few movies (dubbed in Spanish), including “I See You” which was filmed in Cleveland, Ohio! It was fun for my travel companions to see the state I lived in. Later there was some “documentary” (religious) about fathers, also focused on Ohio – super weird!
First thing the next morning, we took a 3-hour hike through a thousand-year-old jungle that had grown on top of an old Maya city-state (Lakam-Há). Absolutely astounding views, nature, and history. I may start doing this more, but for this hike (and future rain forests) I put together the cool non-people pics I took into an album you can check out. The exposed ruins we were able to see only represented around 5% of the total city, and there’s currently tension between the local Maya people and government preservation/archaeological groups as to who should dictate the rules for this site before further excavations begin. Interesting stuff from our guide Francesco!
Later that night the Irish gals on the trip convinced some of us to join them for karaoke at the hotel bar. It was a really weird setup, where they just played karaoke YouTube videos on the TV. Still had a blast though, and finally started a much-needed spotify playlist of good go-to karaoke songs (many of which are just sing-talking, since I’m fairly tone-deaf) for future opportunities. Early to bed though for another adventure in the morning!
The next day took us to an optional outing to a waterfall, made famous by a certain former California Governor (the big rock at 0:30 is where I sat when making the sketch below). Because of Hurricane Helene, the waterfall was much more intense than usual, and swimming around it was honestly pretty scary. I didn’t get photos of this, but we also went to a cave behind the waterfall, that had another waterfall inside, along with tons of little bats!! We could even swim around a bit (but I didn’t… because I didn’t want guano in my face). It was much different than I expected, in mostly good ways. I also finally had time to make a sketch in my travel journal, something I like breaking up notes/writings with:
That’s gotta be it for now! I’m posting this from Flores, Guatemala, after our day-long bus ride and border crossing (which I’ll maybe write about in the next post!)
💜 Ada
Post 2/8 of Ada’s 2024 Latin American Journey (1100+ Photo Album)
- Mayan Adventure (14 Days)
- Local Living Ecuador (7 Days)
- Sandboarding & Sunsets (21 Days)
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