Xela to Mexico and back to Xela

Old pile of well stacked rocks

Last night with Rach

Black sand beaches, best traveled by horse

I have been neglecting my stories, mainly because I have been taking a very busy route of north, south and north again.  After the New Year I headed to Mexico, San Cristobal and Palenque.  San Cristobal was a beautiful and clean city in the mountains.  There was one huge drawback, I might as well have been in Minnesota....it was freezing at night.  Other than the city being gorgeous there really was not much to do.  We left Racheal, and went to Palenque, the main reason for going to San Cristobal.  Palenque is a Mayan site, small enough to where there are no hoards of people, but still impressive.  This site is nestled in the jungle, hot...good.  We spend the morning exploring the ruins, enjoying the heat and then headed back to San Cristobal.  So, in a nut shell, we spent many, many hours on buses to go to Mexico for six days.  I am always making smart choices!!  Truely, it was great to have a few more days with Rach and Nick, even if they were spent in transit.

Lil Hobbit

So few days spent freezing in Mexico leads to a few days sweating on a beach in Guatemala, with many hours of buses as a bonus!  Sarah and I landed in Montericco.  Lazy little town, located on a black sand beach.  Since it was Sarah´s last days in Guatemala, we sprang for a nice hostel.  The beach was beautiful, I have never seen black sands.  There was one drawback, black sand is HOT!!  I was warned going in, but did not listen and almost burned my feet to a crisp when I went swimming.  Black sand may be exotic, but by no means practicle!!  The days were spent mostly by the pool with cocktails.  We did go for a hosre ride and release baby sea turtles into the water which was pretty cool.

We returned to Antigua so that Sarah could catch her flight home.  Antigua is a cool city, although packed full of tourists.  Right, I am one of those, forgot.  Apparently there was an earthquake there, which collapsed the majority of the city.  So, what you find all over the city are these ¨modern¨ruins, really cool, I am learning things!! I was going to climb a volcanoe there, but appparently someone was shot up there a few weeks ago and they have closed the trek, safety first.  I attempted an early escape after I found that out, and after shots were fired in front of my hostel, but was convinced to stay.  Trust me, beer was not involved in that decision.... I ended up maxing out my five day rule in Antigua, meeting great people and socializing.

Once my five days were up, it was time to do some real traveling!  I returned to Xela, with Martin, to get my trekking on!!  More on that next time....