Another One Bites the Dust in Jungle Madness (Mexico)

The day after we arrived in San Cristobal, we woke up early again to head out to Palenque. Neither destination was originally on the itinerary, but we have met so many neat people along the way who have recommended alternatives to the ones we found initially, that we have been happy to shift plans a bit. We packed up the car as usual, slammed the trunk shut...again and again until we discovered that the trunk had broken. For some reason the latch was no longer locking, so we took out our handy tool kit again to try to fix it ourselves, with the help of google. After about 20-30 minutes, we bungied the stupid thing shut and headed out.

  We did find a nice mechanic who fiddled a screwdriver around in it and proclaimed he had fixed...only to have to rebungie the whole thing again. Its ok, it makes the car look more authentic! Luckily the drive to Palenque, though long, was free of hassle. Jared's goal is to make it a whole driving day without getting surprised by a tope and sending us flying through the air...we have yet to reach that goal.                                    
 Along the way, we stopped at some waterfalls called Aguas Azules, which were great!

San Cristobal was quite surprisingly crisp, so we were pretty floored when we got out of the car into sweltering heat and humidity. Jared and I took some pictures and walked around a bit and met up with Clint for a nice dip in the waters. The water is pretty clear blue, apparently due to the limestone, so it was neat to swim. However, there were lots of people there and the water was pretty cold, so after a bit we got back into the car to finish off the Palenque drive. Once we got to Palenque, we found our hostel/hotel pretty easily. The hostel is actually located within the jungle reserves, and it is sprawling!! You literally have to walk through massive trees to find the area where you sleep. I saw a frog about the size of a small cat! For financial reasons, I opted to camp instead of sleep in a dorm, which originally sent Clint into a mega silent-treatment frenzy. You could cut the tension with a butter knife at dinner. Luckily, we ran into some friends we had made at Tower Bridge in Puerto Escondido. We all ended up sitting together, eating, and drinking beers and slowly Clint came around...I guess as I'm still alive to tell the story. Long about 10pm, we are all sitting in the restaurant area, listening to a great live band, and watching the locals dance, when we notice the wind picking up a bit. I think a slab of tin blew off the roof of the bar and then shit hit the fan! All the lights went out and the rain started beating down. Thankfully, the canopy did provide a bit of relief from the rain as we ran back through the freaking jungle to find the camping area. We got there just as an entire tree came crashing down right next to our area, luckily missing the tents by a few yards. There was a thatched roof over the area, so we hunkered down in the tent praying no trees would fall through the roof! About 20 minutes into us getting into a steaming hot tent, Jared bolts up remembering that the car floods everytime it rains, due the straps on top, so we ran out to move all the valuables around (that we can no longer store in the trunk, because it doesn't close) and he decided to actually sleep in the car, giving Clint and I a bit more room in the tent. Needless to say a crazy night in the jungle! BUT we all survived to spend another night camping in the jungle...