La Ruta Photos

It is understandable that not all readers understood my last post, since I wrote it in Spanish. It was a tribute to Pablo for his birthday. It was not private, it was just presented in Yucatecan-thought. Besides that, it was the only way I felt I could retell the story of La Ruta Pacheco-Adams. It sounds idiotic in English, our getting stoned at 6am and giving ourselves silly names which we used all during the trip, laughing like we were in a Cheech and Chong movie. So I thought I could come back in here and put up some of the photos that show some highlights of the trip. I will likely put too many photos up here. I apologize in advance but do not plan to change my mind. We took some great photos during those three weeks. I plan to put most of the Palenque photos on my other blog, http://mayalesserknownruins.blogspot.com/. Palenque is not a LESSER known ruin, but if anyone finds that blog interesting, they might as well see all the ruins. I am trying to.

Campeche reeks of oil money, it is sterile, well guarded, colonial and modern.

Pablo takes photo of detailed church and armed guards in Campeche.

It was an old ornate cathedral with detailed tile work.

This is the photo that most reminds me of the smells of Campeche. Pablo said, "It's too bad you cannot capture odors." Campeche smelled of low tide, wet salty air, shrimp on the grill, and of course, diesel fumes from tons of fishing boats and Pemex trucks.

The serenity at the ruins of Palenque.

Agua Clara Cascades from the road. Agua Azul Cascades are not visible until you drive down the mountain...

There are over 200 cascades here. There is a stunning nature trail leading back to the majority of the waterfalls and a rocky/sandy beach. This shot is nearest the parking lot, thus the most visited area. Empanadas there were ridiculously cheap, fresh and delicious at five pesos each.

Heading south we decided to see the Pacific Ocean in Chiapas. This is the bridge to Brisas del Mar, a long, black sand beach with giant waves. There were palapas on the beach but only one group was on the beach that day. There were no services on the ocean side of the bridge. We did have beer and chips for breakfast where we parked the car though, the fishermen would be in with fresh catch after we returned from our trek to the beach.

This is the beach at Brisas del Mar, approx. 50 miles southeast of Tapachula, Chiapas, México and 20 miles west of the Guatemalan border. Take only pictures, leave only footprints. It was one of those places. I feel guilty posting these photos.

We had to go to Guatemala. Neither of us had been there. They had bizarre buses with crazy drivers. We crossed at Tecun Uman, and ended up in a truck stop called Esquintla where we discovered Pablo did not get his ID back at the border. That put the breaks on the trip. We drove to and through Antigua, which is a pretty colonial town with too many tourists, and lots of rude European ones at that, up around Lake Atitlan (below) and its surrounding live volcanoes. Guatemala has 33 live volcanoes, I learned at the Police Station in Antigua while we worked through the police report of the lost identification. Imagine a Mexican guy trying to cross the border from Guatemala to Mexico without an identification. We couldn't get past that thought so we breezed through the mountains and headed back to the same border. It took us three days.

Ok, so you can't really see the lake, but it is really striking, no? We were zooming through.

These were the biggest vegetables we had ever seen. The carrots were massive. The orange things hanging near the Quiché woman are habanero chiles. If you have not seen one, they are the size of grape in most places. These looked like giant sweet bell peppers...cuidado, they are hot!!!!

We spent New Year's Eve with a Tzeltal family. This is the mom who makes empanadas at thewaterfall and her darling little girl. How about my new tennis shoes? Very zapatista.slanifThere are more photos but this is already a long post. I have to rest, watch the semi-finals of Latin American Idol and my brain is tired. Pablo is still teaching class and it is nearly 8pm. Time to eat and get into the hammock.