Since the whale sharks we´ve been fairly busy but not too good at updating the blog! We left Isla Holbox very early (4:15 am) and got a ferry and then a bus to Merida on the western side of the Yucatan Peninsula. Merida is a fairly big city and while quite pretty in the centre there wasn´t really a whole lot to do there. Luckily we stayed in a very cool hostel with a pool and they gave Becky and Jenny a free salsa lesson. After a little relaxing in Merida we set off to go to Isla Mujeres back over on the eastern side of the peninsula as Jenny was catching her flight from cancun in a few days.
On the way we stopped at Chichen Itza which is supposed to be one of the new seven wonders of the world. It´s a mayan site but from a bit later on than most of the others and is apparently quite influenced by the toltecs. In all it wasn´t quite as impressive as some of the other sites we´ve seen tho it was still pretty interesting. It had a lot more emphasis on human sacrifice with skulls carved around the place and carvings of people being decapitated. Also interesting was the massive ball court where they used to play some kind of game where the loosing team was decapitated and sacrificed!
We later got to Isla Mujeres and spent a few days relaxing at the (very touristy but nice) beach, and also visited a little turtle sanctuary.
On Tuesday we saw Jenny off in the morning and later on we caught a night bus down to Palenque to see some more Mayan ruins! These were much more interesting and impressive and unlike Chichen Itza they were still surrounded by dense jungle and you were allowed inside a few of the pyramids to see the tombs.
We´re now in a really nice little town called San Cristobal de las Casas. It´s very interesting and less touristy too and thankfully it is much cooler as it´s quite high up in coffee country. It is nice to not be sweating constantly!
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