We arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas after an exhausting 24 hours! We caught the night bus from Cancun to Palenque which was fun - all the more so because we were treated to Pirates of the Caribbean in Spanish! Interestingly you understood roughly the same amount as watching it in English (ie nothing). We were dozily listening to Harry Potter thinking "this isn't so bad" when rapdly the situation turned... 6 middle-aged American men got on and began shouting their points to each other, despite being 2 feet apart. But this was bearable, until one of them sat across the aisle from us. He had breasts to rival Jordans which (similarly to hers) were out of his wifebeater, he took his shoes off to reveal cheesy feet and he spent the duration of the 13 hour journey farting, snorting and snoring... Lovely. We both managed to sleep surprisingly well though, and got to Palenque at 9.30 to find it absolutely boiling! We rapidly changed to prevent heat exhaustion, then went to check out the tours (of the ruins and waterfalls), hoping to book one for that afternoon. We ended up making a snap decision and booking one on the spot, leaving immediately for the ruins, Misol-Ha (a waterfall), Agua Azul (natural rapids) and that would leave us in San Cristobal that evening... Not the coveted rest we wanted but a sweet deal. We piled into the minibus, and headed for Palenque ruins.

The ruins were amazing - much better than Copan! Unbelievably hot though - after about 10 mins in the sun you'd have to go and rest in the shade for 20, and climbing the temple steps was no easy task. But being the intrepid explorers we are, we zoomed/ crawled up them! They were completely in the jungle too which was so cool. After 90 mins of sweating, we headed back to the entrance to meet the bus, but there was no bus waiting there at the appointed hour. Our bags being on it, we were getting slightly worried after 25 mins of nothing, but then, half an hour late, the driver appeared. He wasn't apologetic though, nooo. He seemed highly irratated by our prescence which was fair. However we managed the grab the two front seats so had a comfy ride, rather than being packed in like sardines in a sauna.

The next stop was Misol-Ha, this amazing waterfall. We walked around the back of it, and took loads of hilarious photos (funny for us that is, the people we were holding up all looked distinctly irratated, but what can you do??). It was so pretty though! And blessedly cool in the surrounding area.

The final stop was Agua Azul which was incredible. It was hard to believe that it wasn't man made it was so perfect. The water was an amazing light blue, and there were all these lagoons you could swim in, which we happily did. The water was luxuriously ice-cold too, marking the only part of the day in which we weren't overheating. There were really surprisingly strong currents streaming thorough the pools though. This boy jumped off a rock into a pool, completely regardless (in true Central American fashion) of the many rocks and unvisible shallow parts. And I accidently ended up in the roped off section which was so much fun - I was completely out of my depth and just bobbing along in the ridiculously strong current! And Alice, rather than enter the water with grace, classically tumbled in. Very fun!

We hopped back onto the bus for San Cristobal after that which ended up taking much longer than anticipated. And our bus broke down at the end of the journey, so we had to coast into the terminal! We didn't get there until 10.30pm, and having not been in a bed for 36 hours, and spent the day walking we were absolutely whacked. We got a cab to a hostel, hoping there would both be someone there and that they'd have room for us. We were in luck however, and there was an added bonus that it was the world's cheapest hostel - $4 a night, so we collapsed onto our slightly questionable beds, and were asleep in seconds.