Agua Azul and Misol-Há

Another long trek today – out of the San Cristobál valley and over the mountains where the pine tree forests through which we travelled filled our minibus with a wonderful resinous scent. Descending from the mountains we saw several plants in bloom that would be house-plants in the UK. It struck us that a few days ago we were in the world’s largest cactus biosphere with arid lands all around us and before long we would be in the rain forest. And here we are – and guess what? It’s raining. It is also unbelievably lush again with UK houseplants growing halfway up trees! We have seen pictures of different rainforests but they don’t portray the awesomeness of it all.

We visited a couple of quite spectacular waterfalls. The first was Agua Azul, which is in fact a series of rapids and waterfalls that run for 7km through the forest and are breathtakingly beautiful. However today because of the amount of rain that has fallen here recently they were less Azul and more Marrón. It is possible to swim in the pools but Gregg decided to give it a miss when one of the Australians in the group referred to Speedo trunks (which he wears) as “budgie smugglers”!
The second waterfall was Misol-Há which is a long drop of water with a great deal of spray and mist as it hits the very deep pool at the bottom. A narrow path winds around the falls, allowing Christine to stand behind the immense curtain of water and get seriously wet but thanks to her Berghaus Paclite Gor-Tex coat she stayed dry on the inside. (OK when to we get the advertisement fee?)
We are now in Palenque – a friendly town that has no reason to exist other than to accommodate travellers like us heading for the famous archaeological site nearby – which we visit early tomorrow morning (warm rain is forecast)