Part 1 of our Most Excellent Adventure- Welcome to the Jungle!!

Salutations everyone! We wanted to give a brief update on our activities. We are currently in Palenque at an internet cafe in the city. We got here on Friday with a tour that took us from San Cristobal to the cascading waterfalls of Agua Azul, it was beautiful and you could hike along the stream and see multiple cascades coming out of the jungle. The water is turquoise in color and appears to be super clean. As we stepped out of our tour van we could already sense the difference in climate. We have been used to cold mornings with crisp air and the need to wear jackets. Here with all the lush vegetation, hanging vines, and howler monkeys you need to rock sandals and a t-shirt all day long. Our clothes started to stick to us because of the humidity here, but it is well worth it. Even the air here has some sort of electric quality that draws you into intrigue.

After Agua Azul we were packed back into the tour van and headed to Misol Ha, which is a solo waterfall that must have a drop of over 75 feet into a pool of water. We were able to walk behind the waterfall and cling to a rock path to see the beautiful, backside of water!!! Then there was a cave with a waterfall inside of it, we splashed around using my handy dandy waterproof cellphone with a light (thanks dad!) and were able to see the hidden rock waterfall, it was all very Goonies.

So, our day was not over yet, we now loaded up together and were taken to the gates of the Palenque ruins. Once there we found a tour guide that gave tours in English. We split a 600 peso tour with an Englishman from Cheshire, and two couples from Israel. And we were off! We climbed stairs, went into dark tombs, noticed hieroglyphs, learned about Lord Pakal and the Red Queen. It was fascinating, but something even more fascinating was the argument that much of the history told here is untrue. Our guide seemed to make it his quest to disprove the commonly held theories of who the rulers were, how their family structures were set up, etc. He was quite the interesting man- he loved pointing out elements to the ruins that he has deciphered to reflect ancient cultures such as Chinese, Egyptian, Indian, and Middle Eastern. All in all it was a fun experience even if we weren't shown the information that is most commonly believed.

So, there we were. We had spent all day hiking, rock scrambling, caving, posing for pictures and now we just wanted to relax, but have I told you about El Panchan? You don't go to El Panchan to relax, you go to El Panchan for the experience! We paid for our private room and were shown to our quarters. It was down a small path through the jungle, we passed the main restaurant and small structures along the way tucked away in thick parts of the jungle. Our home for the last few days is a majestic mushroom shaped building. It is cylindrical and as you open the front door there is a spiral staircase with a round hole cut out of the floor of the second level. The bathroom is downstairs which consists of a toilet room, and a shower room. Upstairs has a bed, a desk, an area for clothes and the sink with a mirror. There are no shades in this place, the windows arent glass, they are all screens. The roof of our hut away from home is thatched paja giving our home a bowl-cut type hairdoo. It really reminds us of the McDonalds playgrounds from our childhood that had the hamburger jail. We have over a 180 degree panoramic view of the jungle from our second story bungalow. It definitely adds to the magic you can feel here.

I was lucky enough to have visited El Panchan last year with my dad, it was a great bonding experience and I just had to share it with Faith. We had dinner at their largest restaurant, Don Muchos, where from 8:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m. they have live music. After 11:00 there is a fire dancing and drum show. El Panchan is a very unique place full of very unique individuals. People who could be classified as Hippies, sell their handmade jewelry and are some of the fire dancers. The makeup of the crowd here varies greatly from couples and solo people in their twenties sightseeing Latin America to lifetime hippies, to later in life adventurers. I might even be sitting across from anthropologists who I have read articles by, its amazing to say the least. We are making friends here and enjoying trying to understand how this place functions, because we still can't fully explain it and don't think we ever will be able to. You'll just have to enjoy the pictures and try and make your way down here sometime in your life. I promise you that if you ever do, it will change you.

We have arrived at a very special time too. Tonight at 1:30 a.m. ET there will be a full lunar eclipse that will continue until 5:00 a.m. ET. It is unusually important because tomorrow is also the Winter Solstice. These two occurrences on the same day hasn't happened in over 600 years. It is very exciting to be in a place that pays so much attention to these natural phenomenons throughout time. The Mayans followed the celestial processions of the stars and planets and for us to be able to experience such a significant celestial occurrence in a region where people were aware of universal mechanics without the aid of modern technology will be humbling.