Temples, temples, temples ...ballet

After three days we left San Christobel but not before going to the Sumerido Canyon. The Canyon was amazing, cliffs up to 700 metres towered above us whilst we took a motor boat along the river at the bottom, at stages going through waterfalls. It was a truely breathtaking place plus I got my first glimpse of a crocodile sunbathing in the distance. Our next stop was Palenque. The temple ruins in Palenque are in a jungle setting and the surrounding vegetation is home to howler monkeys. The sounds they made were impressive. In reality they are quite tiny monkeys but to hear them you would assume a monster of preditor proportions was coming towards you. Very eerie. Climbing to the top of the temple in the midday jungle heat was not the easiest thing to do. This was my first real taste of tropical weather. Up until this point Mexico had been a bit chilly - from now on in it only gets hotter!
From Palenque we moved to Merida, the capital of the Yucatan Penisular. Our group decided it was time to do something cultural (instead of the usual of sampling all the local beers). We bought tickets to see the Mexican Folkloric ballet. This as it turns out has nothing at all to do with ballet as we know it. It was a show of all the different regional dances. At one point the dancers in fantastic flamenco-equse costumes were dancing with bottles of tequilla on their head. Don't know how traditional that particular dance was!
Chitchen Itza was the next destination. This is home to some of the worlds most impressive ruins. It always features in top destinations to see. The main pyramid (picture above) is magnificant. The site did live up to my expectations and like the other sites I was looking forward to climbing to the top. Unfortunately this is no longer possible as around 10 months ago an American woman fell off and ended up killing herself, because of the law suits that followed no one else is allowed up. As we are very close to Cancun and the big American cruise ships Chitchen Itza was literally overrun with tourists. It was the first time we have encountered other tourists and we had got used to having the sites to ourselves. We will be back off the beaten track before long though.
We did stop at another Mayan site at Tulum. Here the ruins are situated on the beach head overlooking the Carribbean sea. I got very excited at my first glimpse of the Carribbean but more was to come. Our hotel was literally on the beach front. I strung my newly accquired hammock up outside my beach hut and walked the 2 metres through the palm trees into the sea. This place is paradise. I am thinking of you all returning to school whilst I'm lying here watching the world go by.