i can´t stop eating. and pictures.

I cannot refuse any food that my host mom puts in front of me. It´s impossible. Today, la comida was ginormous, and then at 5 we went for crepes and coffee. At 7, I went salsa dancing and was STILL FULL, but when I got home at 8, Isabel had tacos for me....of course, I ate them all. I think I am going to explode, but I can´t stop. I am eating like I will never eat real Mexican food again. Oh, my stomach...Today, la comida was accompanied by homemade horchata and salsa verde. Need I say more? I did have a fleeting thought of my mom´s baked mac and cheese today, somewhere in between the exploding stomach feeling. So perhaps that´s the meal I will pursue when I first get home. :)

I thought I would write a bit about the other places I saw on the Yucatan, and link to the photo albums, even though you have probably seen them already.

After Palenque, Jessie and I went to Tulum, which used to be a sleepy little beach town that didn´t have much but cabanas and a Mexican population. Now, there´s an ADO bus station and a zona hotelera (a hotel zone, much like in Cancun). But, you can still get away from it all. We stayed in the second home of a couple (who spoke little English), and were the only renters that night, so we had a whole house to ourselves. A shared bedroom and bathroom, but an open air kitchen and courtyard. All for us! We rode bikes to the Tulum ruins, where we not only saw Mayan ruins but played on one of the most beautiful beaches I think I will ever see in my life. Then, we rode our bikes to Gran Cenote, which is a big cenote just outside of Tulum. A cenote is an underground cave that has an underground freshwater source. It´s really cool, you can snorkel and there is actually quite a bit of life. Stalactites and the like (or stalagmites....I don´t remember which goes up and which goes down). Then, we biked back to town and went to the supermarket for a few grand meals: Nutella and banana, pastries, and some sandwich fixings. Oh, and a six pack of XX Lager, which we found incredibly difficult to consume. No, I´m serious, we ended up pouring out half of our last one, because we were so tired and so NOT in the mood for full tummies of beer. Haha, such partiers. Anyway, Tulum was wonderful. I got to use Spanish, the beach was beautiful, the ruins are in an incredibly scenic, unique place (on the edge of the Caribbean), and we experienced it all via bike. Link to the album below...

Tulum

The day we left Tulum, we went out to Coba, another Mayan site that is a little more remote. It is situated next to a lake with CROCODILES!!! OMG!!!!! Cool! Lots of cool birds there, too....unfortunately I don´t know the names of any of them...When we arrived on the bus, the bus driver told me, in Spanish, that we could leave our bags on the bus because he was staying in town and driving us back at 330 pm. Uhhh...what? No, no, he says, me confides!!! (Trust me).....uhhhh....welll, we had no other option. It was either trust him or carry full bags all the way through the ruins in the heat....so we took a huge chance. And he totally wasn´t lying at all, and was REALLY offended that we didn´t trust him. We agonized over whether we should tip him, but ended up just saying "Lo siento" a lot, and accepting the fact that he hated us. Coba was fantastic! These were the only ruins we visited that had something to climb that was tall enough to break the canopy. The view was astounding. It was also really fun because there were lots of English speaking guides there, so we just listened in without paying. Ha! Frugal much? We rode bikes around the site, which is really spread out, and ate at a restaurant that claimed to be "la comida tipica de Yucatan", but I´m not sure it actually was. Oh well. We then took the bus from Coba to Playa del Carmen, where we planned to stay, but we hated it so much we left after 2 hours. Apparently you need to leave the main part of town to find anywhere worth enjoying, because it´s being "Cancun-ized". We decided to stay a night in Cancun instead before Jessie´s flight, and chose the worst hostel I have ever stayed in. Dirty, loud, only ONE BATHROOM FOR THE WHOLE HOSTEL, and none of the fans worked. We were glad to leave. Link to the photos from Coba below.

Coba

I went back out to Isla Mujeres to regroup and decide what to do, and my previous post explains how I chose San Cristobal de las Casas....and here we are, totally updated, yes?

Just because I haven´t done it, here´s a link to my photos from Isla Mujeres and Cancun (the first days of my trip). I haven´t gone through them at all, so there are way too many and some are sideways.

Isla and Cancun

More later.

XOXO Anna