Bloody Cold!

Well, we have been through a few places now since I last wrote. We stayed too long in Merida. We got ripped off left, right and centre and it was incredibley busy. Not a place I would recommend visiting, although the colonial architecture was impressive. They lay claim to being the safest city in the world, and that may apply to violence, but not taking advantage of tourists. I have come to realise that in Mexico, and probably much of central and south America, they will make money out of you any way they can. I find it increasingly frustrating, but we have the luxury of living in a culture where we don't need to take advantage of tourists. Sometimes that reasoning doesn't come to the front and I just end up in a sweaty rage.
After Merida we headed toward Palenque and into the jungle. We got an overnight bus which we nearly missed. We only got there because our taxi driver completely ignored all rules of the road as we kept shouting 'mas rapido!!' at him. An absolute legend that deserved the large tip we gave him.
In the jungle though, a totally different pace. We had a cabana that was mainly mesh and the one wall was covered in grafitti. Bearing in mind that Palenque is reknowned for its magic mushrooms, some of the grafitti was quite abstract. One thing which kept reappearing was a quote which included the phrase 'chucking yews.' I still am not sure what that means. But again we found a certain level of pretence. We stayed just outside the main town of Palenque in a little traveller oasis called El Panchan which was a collection of campsites and restaurants. Ours was called Jungle Palace and we were sent to sleep every night to the sound of psytrance and drumming. There are drums everywhere in Mexico and I wouldn't mind ramming some down some people's throats at this point. But we could also hear Howler monkeys in the distance at quiet times. One night we decided to stay in and have a bit of a smokey evening when I decided to go to the bathroom. I walked out and had what looked like the biggest rat sat on the only exit down - a metal spiral staircase. It sat there and stared at me as if to say 'and what are you going to do about it?' He obviously wanted the remains of food in the bin outside. Rosie hates rats and got into a panic. It turned out to be an opposum - which I was fairly certain from the get-go, but it was so brazen. Even if we walked towards it it didn't budge, just wondered why on earth we wouldn't go away and leave it to eat in peace. After a few paranoid dodges and weaves (at one point it actaully ran at us) we got it down the stiarcase and we were freed from our cabana.
During our stay at El Panchan we headed to Agua Azul and Misol-Ha which are 2 beautiful waterfalls. Agua Azul seems to go on forever and has milky blue water flowing all through it. We had a rather 'refreshing' swim and absorbed the luck people must feel when they look at their surroundings in this place. Truly amazing. Misol-Ha was not so stunning, but you could walk under the falls and over the rocks. You spend a lot of time waiting for people to take photos that you don't want to spoil, so it would have been nice to see it during the quiet times. We also got to go into a cave and see a waterfall within a cave, but you had to pay 10 pesos to do this. I'm not exactly sure where the money goes, but as I said, they charge you at every entrance. We also went to see the Palenque ruins, which were also immense. I get the feeling we are going to be 'ruined out' by the end of our travels as the Mayans were quite keen on their epic buildings, but these ones were worth it. We found an older tour guide who didn't charge the moon and the stars. He gave us the basic details - stuff which I'm sure he learned from National Geographic programs as he said he knew all about Australia as he had seen many documentaries on it. He never climbed the ruins with us but waited at the bottom while we got our fill. I unfortunately had a bit of a hangover so my enjoyment of the ruins wasn't complete, but the appreciation was still there.
We are now in the mountain city of San Cristobal de las Casas. We all feel very at home here. It's cold to the point of having a fire in the lounge of our hostel. In the day, when the sun is out, it's lovely. At night the temperature dips to about 0 celsius. But there is a very bohemian vibe here, and I think the homeliness of our hostel only adds to the feeling. It admittedly makes me a bit homesick. But we played bike polo with the owner of the hostel yesterday and were appalingly bad, albeit fun. The day before we were taken up a little higher to the village of Chamula - one of the few places that resisted the Spanish takeover. The local drink here is Poche, a very sweet maize based liquor flavored with fruits. We were taken up to someone's house overlooking the tops of the mountains and consumed a few bottles of this before decending back to the hostel. They use this liquor here for religious ceremonies, along with coca cola. I wish this were a joke, but there is video footage of ceremonies where they spit cola at people as a cure, or simply circle the body with the full bottles. They believe when they drink it it makes them belch and evil spirits are dispelled. Sometimes I really hate what the western world has done to cultures that don't know the dangers.
The fire has just been lit in the lounge, which is nice as we have spent the day walking around the food market. This was the most pleasant sensory overload I've experienced yet, aside from the salted fish which abounds. Tonight there are only a few of us in the hostel, so Rosie and I are bringing a little bit of England to Mexico and are making everyone cottage pie. It's been cloudy and cold all day so it just seems fitting. Our next move is back to the jungle where we will no doubt find the sun and warmth again, but for the moment I'm enjoying this home away from home.