Ruins, waterfalls and fat monkeys.

Day 126

Current Location: Merida, Yucatan (Mexico)

Total Countries visited: 3

Total Miles Driven: 20,431

Hello from sunny Merida !  It has been a week since I last wrote, internet was hard to come by... the states of Veracruz, Tabasco and Chiapas are full of wilderness and waterfalls, but don't have much in the way of connectivity!

I have visited many sites in the last week, mostly natural settings consisting of jungle, rivers, lakes and waterfalls, and a few ruins.  It is incredible how much beauty there is in the heart of the country - cascades and waterfalls at every corner (and you can swim in most of them), dozens of archaeological sites with Mayan, Aztec, Inca and Huichol ruins, and charming little villages that make you feel as if you are part of the family.

The roads continue to be awful, the drivers continue to be rude, but it doesn't bother me as much as it did around Mexico City.  It is a way of life, after all.  Better get used to it.

The highlights of my past 7 days are as follows:

Puebla

Puebla is a very airy, comfortable, friendly town with great food and great amenities.  It was only meant to be a nightly stop, but I enjoyed its central plaza, beautiful church and main shopping area.

 

View from the main plaza.

Pedestrian street with lots of shops.

Veracruz

Veracruz is a fun city !  Medium-sized, on the ocean, it has the perfect location and attitude, with many hotels and bars right on the beach and a lot of ways to spend money.

I only spent one day there, as I figured I would see a lot more beaches and party hubs further down the coast.  However, those few hours spent there were enough to get a pretty nasty sunburn and a very delicious Pina Colada.  I have to remember to wear sunscreen next time !

Pina Colada on the beach.

Catemaco and Sontecomapan

Lake Catemaco is the second largest lake in Mexico - it is huge, and has a lot of very interesting islands... And the city of Catemaco is incredibly pretty and peaceful.  At night you can hear the song of a million birds, and see the moon reflecting on the surface of the lake.  If I wanted to spend a week to relax anywhere in Mexico, it would be there.

The highlight of my stay in Catemaco was a lancha (boat) tour that took me all over the lake, including some of the islands.  There I saw some really cool jungle settings including the spot where they filmed Medicine Man (movie with Sean Connery) and parts of Apocalypto with Mel Gibson.  Also, two of the islands are populated by monkeys, and more curious than anything else the monkeys would come out of the jungle to meet us as we were approaching... I have never seen monkeys in the wild before, the experience was great !

Sontecomapan is another small town just outside Catemaco - it is on the shore of another lake which branches off to the sea through a channel of salty rivers.  I took another lancha tour through the rivers, where I could see forests of mangroves which were just out of this world.

Lake Catemaco on a lancha.

Lakeside setting.

View from the lakeshore.

Curious monkey peeking out of the jungle.

This monkey looked like Jabba the Hutt - fattest monkey I have ever seen. 

Lancha tour of mangroves.

Mangrove roots.

Ruins of Tabasco and Chiapas

After Catemaco and Sontecomapan, I visited two distinct sets of ruins and archaeological sites - one in Malpasito (Tabasco) and the other in Palenque (Chiapas). The Malpasito ruins were very remote (100 miles from any large city, up a small unpaved road) and it was great to be the only visitor there.  However, the hat goes to Palenque - it is said to be the single best archaeological site in the country.  The area is huge, in a jungle setting with howler monkeys adding to the soundtrack, and the ruins themselves are extremely well conserved and very dramatic.

Ruins of Malpasito, in the middle of nowhere.

Palenque ruins.

Gorgeous Palenque ruins in a jungle setting.

Waterfalls and cascades

I love waterfalls !  Literally, they are everywhere - I saw dozens of them, some very tall and majestic, some just cascading around in successive pools of crystal water... There is nothing more refreshing than taking a dip in a pool of running water... I cannot begin to enumerate all the great falls that I have seen... Salta de Eyiplanta (near Catemaco), Agua Azul and Misol-Ha (near Palenque) were the tallest and most dramatic.  But my personal favorite was in Malpasito - truly in the middle of nowhere, up that same little unpaved road, after walking for about 20 minutes on a small poorly maintained footpath, you stumble on a set of cascades - dozens of them, each one of them more gorgeous than the one before... I swam through a handful of them - and the best part?  There was nobody around for miles.  Just the sound of rushing water, the jungle and crazy me.

Salta de Eyiplanta near Catemaco.

Poza de los enanos (pool of the dwarves) in Sontecomapan.

200-foot tall waterfall near Malpasito.

Refreshing dip in Malpasito. 

Beautiful falls in Tapijulapa.

The famous Agua Azul falls near Palenque.

I think that's enough for now !  I am not quite done with the ruins - will go see Chichen Itza tomorrow, but I am pretty much done with waterfalls.  Next up - beach, pina coladas and sunscreen in Cancun Mexico !!!

Hasta muy pronto,

DMR