Kathy and I left Merida on the night bus bound for Palenque. For those of you familiar with Mexican geography, we left Yucatan for Chiapas. Palenque was only slightly more mountainous. We took a hotel at Posada Bonampak at 5am. The charge was only $8. The place lacked hot water but it was so hot we did not really care. Also, it looked dirtier than it actually was.

We slept for a few hours and got up at 9 to go to the ruins of Palenque. We had eggs, bread, and fruit for a fair price and took a van collectivo to the ruins. They were absolutely beautiful. There were three tombs and we were allowed to enter one of them. There was a Palace where the nobles hung out and many of the reliefs were still in great shape. The height of the ruins expepedition was walking to the top of Los Templos de la Cruces. Unlike the ruins of Chichen Itza, there were few tourists and we were surrounded by a beautiful natural landscape. From the top of Los Templos, we were flanked by luscious jungles and a vista of the lowlands. It was truly awe inspiring. We just meditated for awhile and took in the energia of the place. The rest of the grounds were interesting and the surrounding waterfalls were picturesque. Even the museum was informative.

We toured the town of Palenque for the rest of the night. Lonely Planet kind of dissed it, but Kathy and I found it charming. There was a nice central square, and the people seemed content and full of life. We ate at a respectable looking hotel. I ordered what I thought was cheese enchiladas, but it came with chicken. Against my own intuition, I ate it. (BIG mistake...read on) We chilled at a coffee shop reading our books. The book I am reading, Exodus, has started to annoy me a little bit. The author reinforces many stereotype about Arabs; that they are an opportunistic, lazy, and back stabbing group of people. The coffee was great, and we had fun watching the people mill about at the main square. It rained a little bit and we purchased our tickets for San Cristobal de las Casas. My tummy began to rumble.

The night was awful. I had three violent sittings on the toilet, but the third was the worst. Let me just say it came out of both ends at the same time. I probably woke up half the hotel with my wretching. I did not sleep more than 30 minutes because the stomach pains kept coming. The half mile walk to the bus station in the morning was awful.

Not quite as awful as the 5 hour bus ride to San Cristobal. San Cristobal is charming because it is nestled in beautiful mountain ranges. But to get to it requires a bus ride that curves and curves and dips and dips. Ay aye aye. Luckily, there was some good hollywood fluff on to take my mind off of my stomach. We found a place quickly in San Cristobal and I slept until 8 this morning. Kathy explored by herself.

We have had a good day so far and are going to stay until at least monday. I got to see a coffee museum today! They had translations in English so I was able to learn so much about the world history but especially the Chiapan history of the lovely little bean. We bargained with merchants in the market for a few hours and I did most of my shopping for the trip. We saw a decent museum about the history and climbed a huge staircase to the top of a hill where a lovely little church sat. The view was picturesque. The town is very charming because of its age and indigenous influences. Tomorrow we are taking a tour to one of the villages and will see more museums and such on Monday before leaving for the Playa south of Oaxaca. I would write more but the bathroom is calling me.

John