Took the bus to Tikal this morning. What an amazing place. Lot’s of Mayan buildings along with plenty of wildlife. Saw a lot of spider monkeys in the trees but they move fast and stay high up so it was hard getting a picture.

Not sure if I’m going to stay here tomorrow or not. My legs are a little sore from all the climbing today. I also need to find someone to fix the zipper on my new shorts. Remind me never to buy clothes in Belize again.

06/07 Hanging out here in Valladolid after a short day. Need to rest up before heading over to Coba and more ruins tomorrow. I slept like a rock last night even though I had this weird dream that a guy who can shapeshift into a tiny bird stole my panniers when I was shopping.

The place I stayed was a pit though. It was like a zoo in my room. The bug count after 2 nights was: 1 moth, 1 monster cockroach (not kidding–it was so big I could see the different expressions on its face as I chased it), 1 smaller but equally repulsive cockroach, 2 long worm-looking things, many ants and a big, cute lizard. To top it off, the first night it felt like things were biting me while I was laying in bed. I ended up unpacking my tent, laying it on top of the sheets without using the poles and crawling into that. That lasted almost all night until I woke up in a panic because my arms were trapped in the netting and then I couldn’t unzip the door in the dark.

When the sun gets a little lower I’ll venture out and take more pictures–I’m enjoying the AC but this town has a bit of character and needs exploring. When I first got here I detoured off the main road to check out a monastery built by the Spanish back in 1560. Then it was into the centro area where I saw signs for the Cenote De Zaci. A cenote, for those unfamiliar with them, are sinkholes of various sizes whose roof collapsed thus creating reservoirs. All of the towns in the Yucatan are built around their own cenote since they are the only source of fresh drinking water on the peninsula. They are also very sacred and the ancient Mayans used to chuck people into them as human sacrifices so their gods would be happy. About 50 skulls were found in the cenote at Chichen Itza. The one here in Valladolid is smaller but it had a lot more going on visually. Birds were flying around, people and fish were swimming in the water and huge stalactites hung from the roof.

I stopped at another place a few miles outside Chichen Itza called the Balankanche Caves but never got to go inside. Unfortunately the folks that manage this place aren’t very business savy. It was 9:30am on a Monday when I got there. The parking lot was empty and no one else was around aside from the 3 guys working there. A sign said the 45 minutes tours leave on the hour assuming that a minimum of 6 people were in a group (no self-guided tours available). One of the guys said if just one more person showed up he’d take us down at 10am. Ten o’clock rolled around and of course no one else showed up. I waited 15 more minutes and left. Not sure why they didn’t take my $70 pesos and run me down there by myself.

GPX Track

Went over and saw the ancient ruins of Palenque this morning. Palenque, part of the Maya civilization, dates back to 100 BC. It sits in the middle of a dense jungle that’s inhabited by various bird species, howler monkeys, and supposedly jaguars. The ruins were spectacular. Definitely worth a visit. The cool part is that archaeologists estimate that only 5% of the total city has been uncovered.

There were a large number of tourists but the site is fairly large so it didn’t feel crowded. I lucked out and had perfect weather and no mosquitoes, which I’ve heard can be pretty bad.

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