Trip to Campeche

Well today was pretty interesting.

It started off the way that we expected....... slightly late as per usual.

We met our Israeli friends outside the entrance and was introduced to our guide for the morning, Victor.

Victor took us through the Jungle and showed us some really cool stuff, like magic mushrooms (not eaten) pink, orange and red ink from the vines, the cocoa plant that we all tried (tried two and they were both just under ripe) and numerous other things.

Waterfall in the Jungle

There was lots of stuff that happened during the tour, but some of the highlights was Bags and Liza swinging from the vines at the beginning of the tour, walking up through the waterfalls, climbing into the one of the smaller temples (dark and complete with bats) and finding out from Victor that the Mayan's have predicted to the day the combining of the winter solstace with the Sun in the exact centre of the galatic center.......

As Bags and I squeezed into the temple, which was just a random hole in a hill in the middle of the jungle, I could hear what sounded like a purring noise. When I turned on the torch you could see that the first room was about 4 meters long and then another passageway went off to the left.

So what was the purring? Was it a panther sleeping around the corner? Should I check? Should I push bags to the ground as bait as I flee the tunnel in a mad panic?

I shone the torch to the ceiling to reveal a series of bats hanging from the ceiling. Bag's let out a bit of a squeal (which also could have been me, I'm not sure). As I moved forward to check around the corner one of the bats left it's perch to circle for a second..........another squeal (and again, not sure if it was Bags or me).

When I checked around the corner it was nothing more then a small passage way that was covered up by rocks.

When I moved the torch back to the bats they flapped their wings and I could hear the purring noise again. It was nothing more then flapping wings.......... but it was pretty exciting for that little time.

At the end of the tour we had lunch with out new Israeli friends and talked about Australia and Israel and the places to go and visit. Before we left we all exchanged emails and left them with a polaroid of us at Don Mucho's as a parting gift.

The drive up to Campeche went off with out too much of problem............. right up until the point that I drove over the top of a rock and heard an almighty BANG!

I only swore twice, once when we hit the rock and again when I looked under the car to see two streams of Automatic Transmission Fluid pouring out from underneath the car.

It was leaking so quickly that by the time I got back in to put it in to neutral the transmission had already stopped working.

Vinni and Bags headed off into town on the bus while I wandered down the road to try and find a phone. Why a phone? Well bags was going to give us a call from town and tell us what was going on, but no one actually had any signal on their mobile phones.

My very poor spanish finally got me to a phone, however it was a private phone not a public phone. My poor spanish managed to get a bit of conversation out of the lady that had the phone and after 30 minutes of walking a talking we eventually managed to give Bags a call.

It rang out. SPEWING!!!

We wandered out to the front of the store and tried again to communicate through broken spanish, hand signals and a lot of "los siento, no intiendo" followed by laughter before trying Bags again. Second time around there was no luck, from what I could understand the house phone was like a mobile and only had a little bit of signal, which was now gone.

As I walked out the front of the store I looked up to see a tow truck driving down the road with it's lights on.

With my unfit lungs and bare feet I jogged along the road back to the car to find out that when Vinni and Bags had got off the bus there were two tow trucks across the road.

We hitched up Chrissy, or at least the tow truck diver did, and drove the 1.5 hour journey into Campeche with Bags and Vinni in the front seat and Holly, Liza and myself sitting on the back of the tow truck.

Holly, Liza and Me on the back of the tow truck

We managed to find a place alright, directly across from the chapel and two huge clock towers right in the middle of the city. It's only the second time we've been in a dorm since we left San Diego, but we've got 5 of us in a 6 bunk dorm so it's more or less our room.

Chrissy is going to cost Dos Mil to get fixed, we're pretty sure that we're getting screwed on that one but there's not a lot you can do when the car won't move.

Hopefully it'll be Chrissy's last visit to the mechanics, she's done us so well over the past 5 weeks.

I found an esky on the roof of the Hostel here, so after siesta between 2 and 5 we're getting a heap of beers and some ice and will kick back and watch the sunset and the chapel light up in front of us while sipping on 50c Corona's.

It's always about the Journey!