November 25-28 - Lanquin

Semuc Champey

The morning of the 25th I woke up, asked the desk if anyone had signed up for El Mirador and decided to leave Flores that morning since I was told that no one had. I had about a half an hour to pack, eat and pay before the shuttle arrived. There had been so many people that told me that I HAD to go to a place called Semuc Champey by the town of Lanquin. So that is where I decided to go.
The bus ride took about 10 hours. We had to travel along some really rough roads to get there. I had already made reservations at a hostel called Zephyr Lodge from the previous hostel so I already had a place to stay. It turned out to be an awesome hostel. I was not able to see the view when we first arrived because it was dark. But in the morning when I woke up it was amazing. The lower level of the hostel was the bar and restaurant that was open. From there you could see the valley that the hostel was overlooking. In the mornings it was foggy and it was completely forested. It was really pretty.
The first morning I decided to do a tour that several of the people had suggested. It involved a morning tour in the caves in the area, then a jump of the bridge into the river below and then swimming in the pools of Semuc Champey. The caves were really neat because they gave you candles for light and there were times where you had to swim through while still holding the candle. There were some waterfalls inside that you could climb up and place that you could jump into the water from above. The bridge afterwards was really high and I had no desire to jump off of it but a lot of the people did. Next we climbed the mountain overlooking the pools so that we could get a good view of the pools. It was about 20 minutes each way. Then we headed to the pools, where several people decided to jump of the waterfall that was there. It was a little too crazy for me but the pools were beautiful enough that I was not at all bored.

View from the hostel

The next day we went tubing down the river close to the hostel. You could buy beers and they would keep them for you on one of the tubes until you wanted it. It was a perfect morning, floating down the river in the sunshine with a beer. Or two. After when we returned to the hostel, I found out that there was a second group going in the afternoon so I decided to go a second time!
The next morning was raining and cold. I was going to stay for one more day, but since the weather sucked I decided to head out. So once again I had to pack, eat and pay in 30 minutes to be able to catch the next shuttle. The hostel was definitely one of the most fun that I have been at though. It was small, beautiful, everyone was really friendly and the bar was really convenient and fun!

October 29- November 24

Palenque

So I obviously haven't been on top of this. I will try to summarize what has happened in the last month. After Real de Catorce we headed to Guadelajara. We spent halloween and the day of the dead there. There were some celebrations for the day of dead, some live music, but no parades or anything. It was still really fun because it was such a beautiful city. We also had a really interesting hotel. We checked in at like 7am the morning we arrived and the lobby was empty. But by the time we got up and got out again around noon there were already about 7 prostitutes hanging out in the lobby. We then realized why they had full time cleaning staff. But they were friendly.
After Guatelajara we went to Saluyita on the coast. It was really touristy and expensive and someone broke into our hotel room the first day and stole my iphone and gps. I cried for the entire time we were there and hated it.
After that we headed down to Palenque. The first day there we saw the ruins which were incredible. They were situated right in the jungle and there were all these beautiful waterfalls around the site. The next day we went and saw two more sites, Bolampak and Yaxchilan. We saw howler and spider monkeys at the second site which is the first time I have ever seen a monkey in the wild!
After Palenque we headed to Belize to the island of Caye Caulker. It was a cool little island with a relaxed atmosphere where we basically just chilled for 5 days. It was really expensive though.

Xunantunich

After Caye Caulker I unfortunately had to say by to my travel buddy Ben as he had to head back to Cancun. So from there I travelled alond to San Ignacio Belize. I saw the ruins of Xuanantunich. I didn't stay long though in San Ignacio because of the cost.
I headed to Flores Guatemala after two nights in St Ignacio. I have been here for two nights now. I saw Tikal today which was by far the best site I´ve seen. It was huge and there was so much wild life. I´m hoping to do a five day trek to El Mirador in the next couple of days but it depends on if anyone else signs up. I am so home sick at this point I am looking to speed things up, but still having a blast. I will try to update this a little more frequently from now on though haha.

Real de Catorce- October 25-29

Real de Catorce was a small mining town built in the late 1700's high up in the mountains and on the edge of the desert. The mine was built in 1773 and there is a small ghost town right above the existing town. The first day we arrived there we met the guy (Cruse) so looks after the old mine in one of the little restaurants. We started talking to him and he offered us a tour of the old mine and of course we accepted. We got to see the mine itself, plus the old office building just outside the mine and some of the old carts that were used. Inside the office building we found a bunch of old documents. He said there were tons of them and if we wanted to keep one we could!
The next day we went on a desert tour on horseback. It took the whole day to go down into the desert from the mountains, wander around for a few hours and ride back up.
We ended up camping the last two nights on Cruse's land right beside the old office building. We also walked up to see the old ghost town that looks more like archaeological ruins then a ghost town but still interesting. It also had some old mining caves that apparently go deep into the mountain and meet up with the oldest one. So far I think that this has been my favorite town to see!

Xilitla- October 22-24

After we left Toluca we travelled north first to Mexico City to transfer buses. When we got to Mexico city, we had to wait 10 hours in the bus station for our next bus. We passes most of the time playing card games so it went pretty quick. We took an overnight bus to Xilitla and arrived there at around 6am. After wandering around for a bit we managed to find a small hotel that let us check in then and didn't charge us any extra which was awesome. We were all pretty tired and in need of a nap.

When we woke up we went to go see a park outside of town that was designed by a French architect. The buildings were really strangebut beautiful and reminded me of the Goudie buildings in Barcelona. There were all these little paths through the forest that lead to deferent little hidden structures. We spent the whole day wandering around and caught a free ride back to town from a friendly local.

The next day we wandered around the market and got some really cheap food and snacks then went to find a cave that was suppose have parrots that fly in at night. It took us a long time to find it, but when we did we felt a little sully because we were basically walking around on top of it. We climbed around inside for an hour or so and then headed back to the mouth to watch the birds. Right before dusk about 40 parrots started gathering outside and circling around the mouth of the cave. After a few rounds they all flew in at once right above us. It was definitely worth the hike.

Toluca- October 17-21

Aldo, myself and Ben

One of the friends from the hostel who I have been travelling with, Aldo, is from Toluca and still has family there so we were invited to stay with them. We stayed at his grandparents house where his mom and sister were also living at the time. They were super friendly and showed us around the city for the 5 days that we were there. The first full day there after we arrived, we headed into the downtown where there were a bunch of stands selling an assortment of candies and chocolates for day of the dead on November 1st and 2nd. There were all these chocolate skulls that were decorated with icing and feathers, as well as a candy called dulce de leche.

The next day we went to visit his father and some family friends in a near by town. We also visited the town market and tried some of the best ice-cream I've had in Mexico.

On our last full day there we drove out to the volcano overlooking the city. The road made it almost to the top so we didn't have to climb very high to see the crater. It hasn't been active in a long time so there was a lake at the bottom and a bunch of cows grazing at the edge of the lake. It was also very high. Toluca is about 8000 ft above sea level and the volcano was quite high above the city. We were definitely out of breath when we reached the top.

 

Although Toluca hasn't been the most exciting or beautiful city we've seen, we were all sad to leave because Aldo's family had been so good to us and really made us feel at home.

Mexico City- October 12-17

I finally left the hostel in Cancun and started traveling again! Myself and two guys from the hostel flew to Mexico City on the 12th. We stayed at two different hostels, the second one being a lot nicer than the first. Since we were staying close to the center of the city in one of the nicer neighborhoods, it was safe to walk around so that's what we did for most of our time there. We saw a museum of anthropology, walked through one of the large park, around downtown, around our area and through a couple of markets. We also took a day trip out to see the ruins of Teotihuacan. The site was enormous and took us the full day to see. And the food from the street venders in Mexico city was amazing and pretty cheap! Tacos may be my new favorite food haha!

Teotihuacan from the Pyramid of the Moon

Tulum- September 30-October 2

Tulum is a small town about 2 hours south of Cancun that is located next to the ruins of the Mayan site Tulum. Four of us from the hostel left on Friday afternoon and drove down. The guy driving knew a place on the beach to camp so we headed there. Unfortunately 2 of us didn't have tents so we wandered down two lots from the campground and found a little hotel type place right on the beach.
Saturday morning we went to check out the ruins which were quite different from the other Mayan sites that I had seen. Tulum was a fortified site with walls all around it and was located right on a cliff overlooking a gorgeous beach. It served as a large trading center. There weren't as many large structures as the other sites but it was still pretty cool. We spent about on hour on the beach there and then headed back to the hotel.


The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing on the beach till we had to head back to Cancun on Sunday afternoon. It was one of the nicest places I have ever been and I really hope I get to go back soon!