I live in a tree, but I'm not Swiss

San Cristobal was a blur. It seemed to be so brightly colored after the greyscale of Xela. I didn't get to do nearly everything I wanted to do there eventhough I stayed an extra day. I went to a coffee museum, and two seperate churches on hilltops. I got sick again, but not so bad. I feel much better now. I spent a lot of time on the roof of our hostel watching the sun set in the hills. I bought a bunch of stuff from a Zapatista collective. Good times.

On Saturday we took a bus from San Cristobal to Palenque, which is a lot lower in elevation, and in the actual scary jungle. It's hot in the jungle. When I say jungle, I mean like where Curious George is from. I might as well wear a big yellow hat. So we show up at this place a friend recomended expecting a really cheap hostel, and we find a giant resort type situation in the jungle with everything from fancy cabanas to just a place to hang your hammock. So now I live in a tree house, Swiss Family Robinson style, for which I pay a little less than $4 a night. This tree house is exactly what I would have wanted to live in as a child. It's tiny, and you have to climb up the ladder of a playground slide and walk across a plank to get to the door. Kind of a trick with a backpack on. Luckily you can slide from my door to the bathroom. Anyway, this place has a pool (so great in the middle of the day) , and a restaurant where I spend all my money.

So this morning I went and saw my first major batch of Mayan ruins for this trip. The ruins here at Palenque are beautiful. I climed about a million tiny stairs and took as many pictures. I'm so fascinated with the jungle. It's so different from anything I'm used to that I feel like it only belongs in movies. It's like being on mars or something. Once it got too hot to hang out at the ruins anymore we went back to the treehouse and spent the afternoon at the pool. A pretty bueno day if I do say so myself. The rest of this trip is looking up.

Tomorrow I'm heading back to Guatemala for more ruins among other things. I've been spoiled by spending so much time in the mountains, now that it's hot again I don't know what I'll do with myself. I better buy more tank tops and shower a little more frequently. We'll see what happens.

oh, and there's a few more pictures now on the same link I put up below including one of the tree house, and some of the ruins. Note the delicious looking cow head we found in the market in San Cristobal.