The Yucatan, ruins, and donkeys

spent a day wandering around the ruins of monte alban and watched the sun set over one of the great zapotec cities then cruised a most chaotic mexican market for some grub for about a dollar. another night in the great city of oaxaca with some new friends. after a nine dollar bottle of tequila was consumed in full we were somehow convinced to go salsa dancing. wow. spun some ladies around and tried to look as foolish as possible.

san cristobal next via the first forged river for tremendo, the new name for nuestro coche, by blue agave fields as far as you can see used for making mezcal, tequilas big brother which packs quite a punch. north of town we visited agua azul. below the tourists taking pictures we met some friends camping, joined them with our harmonicas and the next morning swam, jumped, climbed and tumbled own river. swung on vines, jumped off trees and watefalls, slid down water slides and pounded our chests like tarzan. what a blast.

did some splunking at misol-ha a huge waterfall with a hidden cave nearby. got about 200 feet in climbing up waterfalls and into rooms filled with bats and huge stalags. amazing.

our first mayan ruins at palenque with a night on hammocks in the thick of the jungle. so powerful to be among these huge ruins poking out from the middle of the thick jungle. more mayan ruins at chichen itza and uxmal that were at times crowded and at times deserted. the yucatan is so flat and the pyramids they built so tall that you can see forever. threw the football around during a heavy rain in the monsterous stadium at chichen itza and imagined the echoes of the crowd and the king cheering for us. watched the buildings lit up at night in brilliant colors with a big powerful voice speaking spanish.

one of the thousands of donkeys that line the roads of mexico. definitely the prefered mode of transportation on many of the mountain/jungle roads that we took tremendo.

the highlight of our time in belize - making pasta with the JVIs from belize city. for a country we had planned on spending as much as a month in belize turned out to be a major dud, but fortunately it´s only the size of massachusetts. we were in and out in two and a half days.... more to come soon from guatemala.