CHAMULA TO AGUA AZUL AND PALENQUE

what a fabulous day ... really, each day tends to outdo the last !!!!  we woke up, packed and got ready to come to palenque. les went down and got my cappuccino and his coffee for 60 pesos. happy blanca with her cappuccino and happy les with so little spent. we had pastry we bought the day before at a great bakery. breakfast over, we were good to go.

in the middle of the night, we had had a mini meeting and decided to leave Cancun and the whole yucatan for another trip on its own. we just dont think we can do it justice since we are already on week 3.  Les is tired of so much driving esp since most of it has been mountainous and very dangerous at times.....not a second to relax and drive a straight portion....a stupid bus turned into our minute lane on one corner and I really thought we were goners.....

so, we get in the car and log info into the GPS tomtom and off we left. about 4 blocks later Les sees a laundromat. well, it is wonderful if we can wash some clothes so we stop and yes, she can do it in an hour and a half after les negotiates.  so, i suggest we go to the indian village i had heard so much about since we have time on our hands.

we went to Chamula - only a 20 minute drive.  wow. you can not imagine what a total chaos the local market is.  my tour book says that sunday is the biggest day and it was HUGE. fruit and crafts all over the place.  hundreds of locals swarming to buy. tourists by the busloads...crisis ??  ecoomic crisis ????  not for some, I guess !!!  not only that but people are not afraid of all the bad publicity that mexico gets either ... it seems...

enough rambling - we get to chamula and there is a church but we were not allowed to take photos.  the families kneel down in groups of 4 or 5 and set alight 50 or s candles on the floor, and pray for health or a job or for whatgever they need, out loud in their language. it is entrancing, amazing, just outstanding. moms dads and kids lots of kids. and the priest was not so kind, i thought, in the way he  handled them but he was conducting a number of baptisms.  and we saw people in aobut 5 different groups with palms and crosses. turns out these were funeral processions. it was beyond description. chaos.

after an hour at the market, we got our laundry after a 15 minute ride back to San Cristobal and off we went to PALENQUE. supposedly one of the best preserved mayan archeological sites.

on the way here, we stopped by agua azul since a friend recomended it to us. oh oh ohhhhhhhhhhhh it is a beautiful waterfall cause it is wide rather than high......

here we are in palenque. our hotel is reasonable but just barely OK.  it is clean. it has internet. it is near restaurants and we ate and came here to the room after a short walkabout

MANY PHOTOS ON PHOTOBUCKET, write me if you dont have access.