I stayed in Escondido until my three-week jaded weird stage had passed. My time was spent chatting to people by the hostel pool – people who were also there for a week or so, so the stream of new faces slowed right down and made way for deeper friendships. I cooked, I watched sunsets, I lay on my bed and did nothing for hours at a time: nice. It took about five days before I felt back to full energy – once again ready to get out there and find a new adventure.

The remainder of San Cristobal was calm: I went out one night for a dance, and the rest of the time I just chilled in the hostel and chatted to a lot of people and spent one particularly lazy and enjoyable day watching the new Lord of the Rings series on a big screen in the hostel. My energy from the first few weeks of my trip was leaving me – it always does around three weeks in.

After the insane waterfall day in Palenque, I had a last supper with Luuk, Bas and Nienke, and then it was time to head on. Luuk and Bas were heading south from Palenque, taking a bus the next morning to Guatemala where they planned to visit an active volcano – you hike up an adjacent mountain, from where you can watch it erupt every thirty minutes. I added it to my to-do list.

Next stop was Palenque. I took a night bus there with Olatz and Nienke, and we arrived at 8am and wandered through the little mountain city. It’s hillier and more haphazard than flat Merida, with the latter’s colourful cobbled lanes replaced with topsy-turvy highstreets crammed with pharmacies and hat stalls. At the end of each street, when each one inevitably dipped away or curved around, green broccoli mountains line the horizon. I noticed very few backpackers or tourists in the city, which is simultaneously pleasing and a little intimidating when you can’t speak the language and are aggressively blonde.

Maaan I’m a bad writer. Not in the sense that what I write is bad – no. What I write is glowing brilliant amazing, fuck you. I’m a bad writer in the sense that I just don’t… do it. I spend my time thinking about writing and getting excited about it, and then I simply do not do any writing. But whatever, I’m here now. Hello.

The next morning – BIG BREAKFAST – Luuk and Bas were due to leave for Bacalar, a lagoon town in the south. I’d heard that it’s more of a party place than anything, and it was in the wrong direction for my journey. Instead, I reluctantly hugged my jolly Dutch boys goodbye in the hostel, and that afternoon, along with Nienke, Olatz, and a cool New York stoner-screenwriter called Ian, we hired a car and headed out in search of cenotes.

Olé!

Do they say ‘Olé!’ In Mexico? I do not know. But that’s my mood. Olé! Vamonos!

Well shit, I’m in Mexico. I’ve been here sixteen days already and not written a jot because every time I tried to write it was rubbish. It’s too cool here to describe conventionally. I love it. Esta muy bien, or whatever. Still working on the Spanish.