Day 6 – Palenque to Frontera Corozal – 14th Nov 2016 (Monday)

We woke up feeling well rested, which wasn’t surprising as we’d slept for 18 hours in the jungle paradise. We headed to the pool for a swim, then checked out and started our journey to Frontera Corozal.

We decide to go luxury and get a Taxi. It was a good decision, we make good time through the tropical wilderness. It took about 2 and a half hours, with Oscar who took us right to the gateway to Yachilian.

We were treated to a sound track which he selected with one hand scrolling through an MP3 player radio, we heard the first three seconds of a lot of tracks. He was a picky DJ.

Over the journey Oscar treated us to a whole range of tunes. Our favourite being Welcome to the Jungle, we headbanged in the back and giggled a lot.

On arrival, we were driven right up to the river at Frontera Corozal, where we boarded the small boat which would take us up the river to the ruins.

Here, we got onto a beautiful turquoise boat, on the Usumacinta river. The border between Guatemala and Mexico.

The boat ride was about 30 minutes, and was fantastic. We spotted cranes and one shy crocodile, who splashed into the river as we cruised past.

The wind from the river was fresh, a great relief after the sweaty jungle and hot car journey to Yachilian.

After about 40 minutes we were dropped at a small jetty with the command that we had 2 hours to explore. We set off into the jungle after signing in, and meeting the locals (one man).

The lush green jungle is full of wildlife and only a handful of visitors, all of whom had arrived in the same way we did, by tiny river boat. Yachilian is almost on an island, the Usumacinta wraps it’s way round in a tight loop making a c-shape cut through the jungle.

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We followed the Rough Guide advice to tour the more remote clusters of ruins first, and then to approach the main temple, or ‘the waffle’ as we’d been calling it from the opposite side to the main path. The guidebook’s route took us through thick jungle, with howler monkeys all around. Biting ants crossed the path regularly, they took any opportunity to take a little nibble.

There was a quieter type of monkey in the trees, which looked a lot like limby humans walking through the branches. They quietly made their way overhead and we spent lots of time trying to take photos of them.

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These were amazing ruins. Nicely restored and really quite tourist free, we were having a great time. As we wound our way through the forest/jungle to the grand plaza, there was only a few minutes of our two hours left. Eeeek. Time had flown by.

There was a lot left to see, so we dashed about taking pictures and trying to soak in the atmosphere. This is where the guidebook let us down, the grand plaza was stunning and the book failed to mention how much there was to see here.

Cutting out return to the boat to the wire, we dashed back along the path and a Capybara nipped out from the undergrowth and dashed along in front of us. Perhaps it too had a boat to catch.

We arrived back to the jetty, to find our boat man snoozing in the boat, but ready for the up river return to Frontera Corozal.

The return leg was just as fun as the outward journey, and I didnt really want it to end. But we arrived back at the village and we had no choice but to get off the boat.

We then checked into the our rough and ready accomodation for the night, and headed out to find some food, and to see the local sights. We pottered about the small village, and saw very few people. Frontera Corozal is a much poorer town then we’ve experienced so far on this trip.

A border town, with some Guatemalans visiting and only a handful of tourists. There didn’t seem to be much here. We ate a late lunch in the only place that seemed open, we’d yet again hit the Mexican eating ‘dead-zone’ between 3.30 and 7pm.

We ate and enjoyed delicious food despite our delicate stomachs.

Since there really was very little else to do in the town we headed ‘home’ down the only paved street in the place. We saw glow-worms on the way back. We also noticed that lots of the people looked very sleepy, and there was an air of not much happening.

Our accomodation was essentially a hut, and was quite basic but it was very cheap, $270 pesos which was around £11.

The toilet was across a grassy square, and it too was rather basic. But it had water, and a toilet. There were also some spooky looking white gekos dashing about the place.

There were quite a few bugs about, and so we decided to get the bug spray on to sleep. Eddie got rather stressed about the bugs. Our early night turned into a bug dance. But we got into clean-ish sheets and read our books before going to sleep.

In the middle of the night we’re awoken by howler monkeys in the pitch black. It was very freaky. But they seemed to be on the move and were soon out of the vicinity, and we dozed back off.