Zapatistas, Waterfalls, Posh and Ruins

We knew that our first visit to Mexico would be a short one, because our plan was to visit only the region of Chiapas, and then travel east through the jungle back to Guatemala before heading to Belize and finally back to Mexico to see the Yucatan peninsula.

For our week in Chiapas, we had a rather busy programme. Using the beautiful and lively colonial city of San Cristóbal de las Casas as a base, we headed out into the surrounding fur-wearing Tzotzil Maya village of San Juan Chamula, where we tried the sacred sugarcane aguardiente named posh. Inside of the church we could observe a very special ceremony - the church has no chairs, only a floor full of needles from local pine trees, hundreds or thousands of candles, and Maya families sitting on the floor praying and pouring soft drinks and posh over the candles.

On the way to the colourful lakes (everything from dark blue to turquoise) of Montebello, we explored some caves nearby San Cristóbal, and got wet at the spectacular 70m-waterfall of El Chiflón.

We took a boat ride through the crocodile-filled river on the bottom of the Sumidero Canyon, and on the following day left for the famous Maya ruins of Palenque, stopping on the way for some beautiful scenery around the "Agua Azul" and "Misol-Ha" waterfalls.

After being impressed by Palenque's high-rise temples and pyramids (very different from the lower constructions we had seen in Copán Ruinas, Honduras), we spent the night in a cabaña in the middle of the jungle, getting woken up by the roaring sound of the howler monkeys, ready to go back to Guatemala.