We are travelling down the country and aiming for San Cristobal de las Casas, an inland town in the Highland Mountain area of the Chiapas region.
It’s a 9.5 hour drive from Campeche to San Cristobal de las Casas so we decide to break it up into two sections. Tonight we are over nighting in Palenque, pretty much at the halfway point. It’s a hot humid steamy place and we have opted to stay out of the gritty industrial town in favour of one of the many jungle hotels that line the road to the ruins that are in the neighborhood.
We will be arriving pretty late in the afternoon so don’t really plan on doing much but chilling after the drive. The road flashes by quickly, we are on the Mexican 189, it is a good surfaced road, one of the best we have been on, that allows you to make good time. Lush tall jungle flashes past the window, it is as if the bulldozers have just cleared a long straight line and tarmacked it, actually bet thats exactly what they did. Lol. The road is so straight with very little deviation.
There is always something to catch your eye on the roadside in Mexico and it is nice to get out and stretch you legs now and then. This beautiful Fiesta Church as Rosie calls anything with flags on it is amazing. It totally sums up Mexico. Fiesta Flags, Ochre Church, Blue Sky, Bell Towers, Beautiful Colour. Automatic smile.
As we are on the State Highway, we need to pay tolls for the use of this beautifully straight piece of tarmaced beauty. The alloll stops seem to be a little too frequent….it is only a couple of bucks all up….what can you do.
We arrive mid afternoon in Palenque and settle into our hotel amongst a beautifully tropical landscaped garden.
We have a studio overlooking the pool area, the air conditioning is going, and from our indoor seating area we can watch the pool through large glass doors in our quiet cool piece of paradise. Yes, Rosie is a poolside humbug….if i were to lay out there, I would be covered in mosquitoes within seconds.
There is no refrigerator and The Operator has bought beers for our in room Happy Hour. It would be devastating to have warm beer when it has peaked at 36c today and is so hot outdoors. Never fear the Operator fills up a new bin liner in the rubbish bin with ice and within 15 mins our beer is icy cold just like the room.
The Hotel is filling up, testament to the arrivals at the pool. Within 10 mins of anyone checking in, they are down at the pool taking a dip then lounging poolside listening to the wee cascading waterfall.
At 7.00pm we wander through the tropical jungle paths to the restaurant, the sides of the restaurant are open air and the only breeze is made by the overhead fans.
We sit looking out over the garden and pool and an amazing lightening storm rips through the sky followed by the sound of distant thunder. The frequency and intensity increases as the sun sets and then the wind starts to blow as darkness falls. There are too many weird jungle sounds and movements which are not only plants. Out of the corner of Rosies eye she ‘sees stuff’ flitting in the bush, these ‘things’ freak me out and we need to get back to our room before the downpour which will come at any minute Sitting, looking out the window of our room there are still a couple of people in the pool even though the lightening strikes are now directly overhead.
The heavens open and the torrential horizontal rain is unleashed…the swimmers quickly leave the pool and run to their rooms. Puddles of water quickly develop, they turn into mini swimming pools themselves and out of the forest come the frogs and the creepy crawlies, they are all there on the pool patio, enjoying the rain…the lizards that basked in the sun poolside earlier in the day have long retreated.
Time to turn in for the night, it has been a long day, and we are having an early start tomorrow.
Our next leg is a 5 hour drive and we want to stop en route at the Agua Azul waterfall which is a 5 km detour and still be in San Cristobal de los Casas by mid afternoon.
After last nights storm the day has started out a little cooler than usual and it is overcast, perfect weather for a big drive.
The route now is not on the Mexican motorway but rather a secondary road that immediately plunged us into the jungle, on the windiest, wiggliest road you could imagine. All the time climbing up hill higher and higher. This road is the stuff of nightmares, it is a single lane road with a lot of potholes, a permanent yellow no passing line because of the bends and turns and, just to make it more painful, in front of every house and every 50 meters when you enter the towns and villages are tobles.
Tobles are speed humps in the road…they are not all made equal. Some are really worn out and offer little resistance, others are teeth chattering. All will totally damage your car if you do not see them and slow down to a crawl as you cross them. The majority are signposted, a good deal are not. Our whole 5 hour journey was done at an average speed of 55km an hour….and still Rosie had to expunge her breakfast on the side of the road.
As the countryside gets steeper the wild vegetation is still lush and green. Cornfields are common and are getting bigger, not planted on nice flat lands but in the most unlikely spots. On the sides of the hills and in dips and hollows, fallen trees are on these mountainsides and the corn is just planted around them. I suppose their patches don’t really need to be cleared as they will harvest by hand anyway at the end of the season.
The road is on the high points of the landscape and the villages we encounter start on the roadside, with shops selling fruit, gasoline (in 10 litre plastic containers) and souvenirs, and then tumble down the mountain side into the valleys. Its hard to see how these towns are accessed as there are no obvious turnoffs or definite roads, just dusty tracks.
We turn off the main road onto an even narrower one and descend down the valley to the Agua Azul waterfall. There are two amazing water attractions in this area and we opted to see the biggest and most popular to save on time. We turn into the car park and a group of boys aged 5-9 come up to us and offer to ‘look after our car’ for $20 pesos. We have heard about these tiny roadside vigilantes…agree and you come back to your car as you have left it…refuse the fee and you may return to a broken headlight or busted side mirror….with the wee culprits long gone.
The couple that parked just before us refused to pay, they then asked the boys which way to the falls, the lads pointed over to the other side of the carpark and off the couple trotted. The gang approached us and asked The Operator for 20pesos. The Operator said half now and half when we return. We also asked the kids which way to the falls and they pointed in the opposite direction that they had sent the last couple in…we looked at them, they all pointed in the way we should be going. No way, said The Operator they sent the peeps that didn’t pay them off in the wrong direction…don’t know why they would head that way anyway, said The Operator, the waterfalls are so loud you know if we are heading in the right direction.
To get to the Agua Azul you weave through corridors of street vendors and souvenir shops and cafes set up in the jungle, the path forward was muddy and slippery from last nights rain and heaps of mini buses were arriving one after the other and dropping people off.
You hear these falls long before you see them. From the freight train like roar you know you are in for something pretty spectacular. Yes, Rosie wasnt wrong The Agua Azul itself is a mighty impressive sight. We walked along the river bank and the water was lapping at the edge, not far from breaching into the shopping zone. It felt abit freaky as you are standing looking at the falls from below the level of them and you are so close.
The river was high from last nights tropical downpour and instead of beautiful turquoise water cascading from great heights into the pools at the bottom of the river….we had muddy brown.
But hey, thems the breaks. The volume of water coming through was spectacular and there were multiple falls coming from all angles with lush green jungle as the backdrop. Fine spray from the falls carried on the breeze and misted you and a weak rainbow had just appeared over the falls when the sun cracked through the crowds.
There wasnt alot to keep your here for very long. On the way out we found an espresso coffee shop amongst the juice and breakfast bars that bordered the muddy path. Rosie was overjoyed, we had been on the road for a couple of hours and this was fab! A friendly barista who spoke good English was most dismayed when we ordered our coffees….the whole site had no power after last nights storm. Bugger!
Back in the carpark the lads were a little aloof and had lost abit of their bravado when we arrived back at our car. The Operator walked around it and made sure it was in one piece and then handed over the $10pesos to the youngest in the tribe who was the bravest and came over…the kids cheered…I guess they didn’t think they were getting the rest of their money.
The roadside towns are grimy from the road dust and exhaust fumes, every house is untidy and in a half built or unfinished state. Dogs roam the main road, scrawny chickens pick under roadside bushes and fat squat pigs are tethered on the roadside.
Its Sunday and a lot of families are walking somewhere (church?) dressed in their finest traditional clothing, its hard to tell where they are headed as its not obvious….it just seems we and they are in the middle of nowhere.
We had a few other short stops along the way to stretch our legs, or in Rosies case be car sick on the roadside or take a few snaps.
Some enterprising kids had set up a rope that stretched from a roadside tree to the other side of the road. The rope had coloured flags attached to it and the group of three young kids were pulling the rope when a car came along, the rope would then stretch to about windscreen height, in the hopes you would stop the car and they would they would ask for a ‘toll’ to let you pass. They were giggling on the roadside when we approached and up came the rope. The Operator slowed, the rope hit the windscreen and slid up and over the roof….no toll from us today.
The problem with the kids plan…they were all way to young and unmenacing, they needed their gnarly drunken uncle sitting there with a shotgun roadside in a deck chair. Then it may have been a different story.
We are still driving the narrow, winding road with a double yellow line down the middle. Drivers in Mexico are just as impatient as anywhere else in the world. But the unwritten law is, if you have room to overtake and you are mostly still on your side of the yellow line on the road it is OK to pass. A slower vehicle would pull over as a courtesy, 9 times out of ten, to the right of the lane and kind of kerb crawl to let a faster car pass in your lane. This guy was holding his line….and the red car was going to go anyway.
We are so glad to finally arrive at our destination San Cristobal…the journey was more tortuous than you could imagine. The Operator said it was the all time worst road he has EVER driven on in his life. He was frazzled. And that’s saying something
This town at first glance is promising a lot. We have a beautiful place right on the edge of the town square with a balcony looking over all the town square action. We cant wait to get out and explore. But first a beer after the drive from hell.
