We arrived in San Cristóbal de las Casas ready to camp just outside the town…despite the bitter cold. Unable to find it we hopped in a cab with instructions to the cab driver. We were driving for about 20 minutes when we both looked at each other, thinking, nope…this isn’t going to happen…too far! So we gave instructions to make our way back to the centre. We walked around the city for about an hour or more checking out different hostels and guesthouses which were all far too minging for our end of year tolerance levels. Eventually we decided to splash out and found a beautiful guesthouse on the side of a hill looking over the city. We quickly checked in, made ourselves presentable and headed out for some of the fantastic Mexican food I love so much. We found a curry house and settled on that! Mmmmmmmm!! Washed down by 90p Coronas, we left smiling. San Cristóbal is a beautiful colonial town so you could happily stroll around for days on end, sipping wine on the street people watching and enjoying the bustle of all the markets. Chiapas is the poorest state in Mexicó so you do get a lot of hassle but with such a stunning city you barely notice. At the time we thought we were on time pressure as we had planned just a couple of weeks in Mexicó as we wanted to head down to Tikal in Guatemala before flying home…this plan began to change quickly as we fell deeply in love with our favourite country of the year. We hopped on a bus a couple of days later to Palenque for another Mayan ruin ready to camp in the jungle for a few days. We arrived by nightfall, so had to set up camp in the dark. But as we can pretty much set up our tent with our eyes closed at this stage it wasn’t a problem. We enjoyed some live music in the on-site restaurant that night and were looking forward to the sights around us the following day. We weren’t disappointed. The sights and sounds were fantastic. Exotic birds everywhere, howler monkeys chatting to each other nonstop and a glorious pool in which to escape the heat of the day. We had to move our tent the next morning as we quickly realised we had parked among a load of camper vans…so moved to the actual campsite under a massive canopy of leaves to keep the tent cool in the morning. Our plan was to stay for 2 days but, as I’ve mentioned a lot before, this changed and we
settled in for 6 days…lazing by the pool all day, sipping Coronas as the sun went down and enjoying the wildlife around us. It was a glorious and memorable week. But, once again, with too much to see and not enough time we moved on to Mérida to prepare for Carnaval. We were initially undecided as to where we would be for the festival but once we arrived in the city we decided this is where we’d stay. So we booked up our hostel (which was without a doubt the best hostel we’d stayed in this whole year) for a week and a half and, once again, spent the days lazing in the pool and the evenings strolling around the town and enjoying cooking for ourselves once again...we also managed to fit in a day at Chichen Itza (which we found a little disappointing)! It was great to see the city get ready for Carnaval and by the time the first day celebrations were upon us we were ready to part-ay!! The parades were mesmerizing…the costumes, the energy…unreal! The main street in Mérida was full of Sol & Corona beer stands, food stalls (all Mexican…yummmmmmmy) and people partying their asses off. Tacky music could be heard wherever you went…it was unforgettable! Exhausted and hungover we made a quick decision to go to the Caribbean with a friend of ours. Once again, it wasn’t planned but we couldn’t resist a few days on the beach before home time. Trying to avoid Cancún like the plague (of course!), we quickly hopped on a boat to Isla Mujeres just off the coast the minute we arrived there. We checked into a hostel on the beach and set out to find a restaurant recommended to us with 10p wings (spicy, sticky and Jamaican jerk flavoured) and 60p Coronas…it was everything we dreamt it could be and more! We ended the evening with cuba libre’s in the beach bar back at the hostel. The next day we set out to explore the beach…what a sight! There was no tearing us away from that. We spent a relaxing day chilling out and rested ourselves in preparation for our 4 year anniversary the following day. After seeing that the main mode of transport on the island was golf carts, we couldn’t resist and booked one for the day to see the rest of the island. We were bubbly with the prospect of our first time in a golf cart the next day and quickly picked it up to whizz around the island. Our first stop was to visit a turtle sanctuary which was pretty awesome…I was just loving it!! 
Then off to take the coastal route to come back around to the main town…that took all of about 35 minutes so we decided to take another trip around and found a secluded beach where we plonked ourselves, listening to music and sipping freezing cold cans of Sol. We finished the day back at our favourite restaurant with 3 bowls of chicken wings, potato salad (for me of course) and endless bottles of Corona followed by fun in the sand at the hostel beach bar. Perfect! The next day it was time to face reality and make our way back to Guatemala City to catch our flight 3 days later. It took 22 hours to get back to San Cristóbal then another day to get back to Guatemala City but we got back there without much hassle. We spent the last evening of the year at our favourite bar of the year, Café No Sé, spending the last of our Quetzals and enjoying the fantastic live music. And then it was home time. Scary or what?! It was time to say goodbye to Latin America and absolutely nothing could have prepared us for it. But all good things come to an end I guess and what a good thing it was. A year of treasured memories and unforgettable experiences with my lovely…sur’ how bad!? And to think 6 months before we left he wouldn’t even agree to join me! Mi amor, te quiero con todo mi corazón and I will never forget the year you’ve given me. Latin America…until we meet again, hasta pronto! It was: "and I quote 'Lovely Stuff'...not my words Michael, the words of Shakin' Stevens"...Alan Partridge, 2003.
(pic 1: enjoying the camper's life in Palenque; pic 2: enjoying our oversized cups of Sol at Carnaval in Mérida; pic 3: enjoying the sunset on Isla Mujeres)
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