From Merida we headed to Palenque, a 9 hour bus ride! Palenque was not such a pretty town as Merida but had a more realistic Mexican atmosphere; we joined the locals eating tacos in the streets and sampled the finest Mexican beer!

The main attraction here is the Palenque ruins, another Mayan city. We preferred Palenque to Chichen Itza as it rose majestically out of the surrounding jungle and looked wild and almost undiscovered (apart from the hundred odd other tourists of course!) After exploring the ruins and climbing the pyramids (which you couldn't do at Chichen Itza as a woman tourist inconveniently fell to her death in 2006) we headed off into the jungle with a guide. Palenque has over 1000 structures that have never been uncovered or investigated and walking through the jungle we realised we were walking on ruins of houses and pyramids - amazing! We even found a temple rising out of the undergrowth - Kim felt very Lara Croft!

Whilst in the jungle we ate termites...yes you did read that correctly! They tasted like spicy carrots...weird! We also drank from a fresh spring, uncovered a spider the size of your hand (ugh) and padddled in a waterfall.