Welcome to the Jungle!

(Jess writing)
Shannon and I arrived back in St Cris last night- though it has only been about three and a half weeks since we left here, it seems like we have covered a lot of ground in that time.

The Jungle-

So we stayed in this picturesque spot in the middle of the lacondon jungle- our cabin had a beautiful view of the lacanja river. It was really only just three walls, a large bed with mosquito netting, a hammock and two chairs. We made friends with a giant spider about as big as my hand. It was actually quite respectful of our space and spent most of its time hanging out on the ceiling. I would like to say that we saw all kinds of awesome flora and fauna- jaguars and ocelots and monkeys and parrots and things... but really, we mostly just saw bugs. Giant spiders, irridescent flies, butterflies of all shapes, sizes and colors, grasshoppers, cicadas... we saw a couple of monkeys from far away, some rodent looking thing that I am pretty sure was an agouti and one crocodile. We are convinced we heard jaguars fighting in the woods, though we have since been informed that it was probably howler monkeys. I am still convinced it was jaguars...

Did you know- the dinosaur noises from the film Jurassic Park were actually howler monkeys? Weird, huh?

We went rafting down the river that our cabin was on- it had about a douzen waterfalls- rafting down waterfalls is actually really fun- like valley fair, only without the safety precautions! One of the waterfalls was so large that we actually had to get out of the raft and jump off of it into the water below. I still can´t quite believe my body allowed me to do anything quite so foolish, but I seem to still be alive. I suppose the adventure is good for me...

After the rafting, we hiked back to camp through the jungle. On the way back there was a waterfall we could swim in- all in all, the day was pretty incredible.

The next day, Shannon and I spent the day exploring the jungle trasportation system in order to get to two nearby ruin sites, yax chitlan and bonampac. Bonampac has the only colored murals in the mayan world and yax chitlan was definitely the biggest and most impressive ruin site we have seen so far. After the ruins, we managed to catch a minibus back to palenque.

Yesterday, we did a tour from palenque to st. cris that stopped by the two big waterfall tourist attractions in the jungle- misol-ha and agua azul. Bus rides are definitely more fun when you get to stop to picnic and swim in waterfalls. I was a bit disappoited though because the tour made it sound like we would take a minibus all the way to st cris. They actually just had the big bus company make a stop at the waterfall to pick us up. Windy mountain roads on large buses equals motion sick jess.

Anyway, Monday we are off to Mazunte, a hippy beach on the pacific coast, then off to mexico city to see aztec ruins for a change, then home! I miss my kitty...