4th December – Merida – Palenque, Mexico

We cover some ground in this trip and today was no exception. Eleven hours of bus rides was ahead of us. We mosied our way down to the bus station and dropped off our bags. While we were waiting we amused ourselves in the massage chairs (expensive at 50 cents a shot). The chairs gave quite a strong massage and made our tummies wiggle.
We traveled along the flats towards Campeche, the capital of Campeche the state. My moonwalk on the polished concrete in the terminal didn’t impress the security guard and I was asked to move to the footpath.

The trip was long and we eventually stopped for a 25 minute lunch break around 2pm. We can’t remember where it was but the signs said “No tires/rubbish!” afterwards we worked it out as “Don’t throw rubbish!!”. We traveled through the lowlands of Tabasco which is quite wet with swamps, rivers and lakes. It was also very green.

Eventually we arrived in Palenque after dark. We had to get our torches out to find our room in the foothills of the highlands and jungle.
Dinner was a great affair which started with a nip of tequila, kindly donated to all by Claudio which was as tequila is – very strong! We stuck to Mexican food for dinner and a few beers and only one pina colada. The local band was playing and they were pretty damn fine. A few of us (Tan and I) and some locals got up and started dancing. Eventually we had about 15 people up and dancing on the small floor to the awesome tunes.
When we arrived back in our cabana by the pool Tan went to the toilet. As the toilet was refilling after the flush a strange and very loud howling noise came from the bathroom. Tan asked “Is that the toilet?” No way!! I listened from the bathroom window and it sounded like a bear-baboon-lion sound and it was very loud. Monkeys!! We donned our flashlight and went out. Put it this way the Howler monkeys weren’t to impressed we when flashed them with the torch and they went into overdrive with their noise. Monkeys in other trees started and we had an orchestra of monkeys howling in all the trees. We left them alone and they eventually subsided 15 minute later (thankfully as were tired!).

30th November – Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

It’s hard to believe that our week here ends tomorrow and we are off, however, we are both really looking forward to it and itching to see more. We lazed by the pool this morning and eventually grabbed our two Lonely Planet Guides for Mexico and Central America and our itinerary for 22 days and did some reading about where we are going and what we are doing, which only added to our excitement.

We got roped into a game of shuffleboard. Neither of us had played it before but it consisted of three rounds and pushing some disks down a board to get the highest score basically and the winner was Tan!! Yay!!
We backed this up with a spot of dancing by the pool which was lots of fun. Here's a photo of a photo taken with an iguana from a few days previous. We lounged by the pool some more sipping (more than a few, Dan) pina coladas and cervesas (beers).
That night we attended the “We Are The Champions” awards ceremony. Here, Tan collected her certificate and a hat for being the shuffleboard champion.
Wayne and Julia joined us for some more drinks. The show tonight wasn’t like previous nights. It was an interactive spectacular involving women from the crowd, five in fact. If Tan wasn’t already basking in the limelight of the awards ceremony she went one further and got dragged up on stage. Tan was the entertainment!!!

The evening commenced with five women sitting on the stage from Canada, Mexico, Germany, Australia and the UK. The first game that we had to participate in was involved a boa feather with “You Can Leave Your Hat on Playing” and each person had to come out on stage and pretend they were a stripper/pole dancer for the crowd. Tan could not believe what she had gotten herself in for. But she got up there and gave it a red hot go involving the MC lying on the ground with Tan straddling him at one point!!
The next game was each of the woman were given one minute to collect as many items of clothing from the audience in one minute. Tan managed to get both me and Wayne to give up their pants, t-shirts, shoes – to the point they were sitting in the crowd in nothing but their underwear. When the items of clothing were tallied up (bonus points for the pants) Dan came up near stage in his jocks, stuck a pose for the audience and collected his pants. Wayne, not feeling quite so brave, slide off his seat and tried to hide under the table for a moment before collecting his not moving far from the table! The final game involved dressing in a Mexican outfit and playing a film star Maria. Basically Maria was sweeping her floor in her house, when her husband came in the house. “Maria” told him to get out and then her lover comes in and she has to pretend to be passionate with him and the husband sees it and shoots them both. Make sense? Each person had the same scene but had to act the part of Maria differently, in that one was slow motion, was fast, one pretended to be Japanese and Tan got to pretend she was drunk. It’s probably one of those “you had to be there” moments but it was very funny.
At the end of the show all of the girls were given their “booty” of a hat, bottle opener, bum bag and a bottle of champagne. We promptly opened the champagne and shared it with Julia and Wayne. It was fairly awful but we didn’t care. We called it a night around 1.30am and on the way back saw the coati’s. Dan had been chasing from when we first saw them and he was without his camera. So he went searching through the bush to find them and photograph them making him a very happy man!

26th November – Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

Off to the beach today. We rose a little later feeling fine after our late night last night and headed off to one of the other hotels to use their beach. Another beautiful day and the water was surprisingly warm and so blue so we swam around for a little while. We then decided to do some kayaking. We shared a two person kayak, made a smooth exit out through the waves and we were off! All was going smooth and then Dan’s paddle snapped in two. So back to shore to swap it over (with the guy trying to charge us for it – I don’t think so buddy) and we were off again. After a while of paddling we stopping, led back in the kayak with our legs dangling over the side faces in the sun and thought the old catchphrase “this, is living”. We eventually paddled back in to lay in the sun again for a while. We then dove into another pool and sat at the bar in the water and had a drink and then into another restaurant for lunch. It seems that what to drink and eat are the hardest decisions that we have to make at the moment.
There are lots of wildlife around the hotel including these big rat like creatures (not sure what they are called - ratties perhaps?) and Howler Monkeys that hang out amongst the trees. We spent a bit of time wildlife spotting around the hotel. We eventually headed back for a shower and pre-dinner drinks. The beauty here is you end up trying all of these drinks that you wouldn’t otherwise because if you don’t like them, you just don’t drink them. I tried a Raspberry Martini. Looked nice – tasted like crap. Off for another lovely dinner. We admired this display of fruit carvings. Very artistic.
That night we watched a Mexican special at the hotel. There were amazing Mexican dancers who did traditional dances to traditional music complete with costumes. They were excellent. The most amazing dance consisted of all eight of them dancing with beer bottles on their head then two with trays complete with beer bottles and full glasses without spilling any. The dancing was good fun and it we liked seeing a bit of the traditional side of Mexico.