Nothing to see here. Move along please.

Waking up after a lie in, it became obvious why Margarita kept asking us one night or two. It was now our third day in Palenque/El Panchan and we’d run out of things to do. There was another tour but it was an overnight homestay with a Mayan family and we’d already paid for our room. And it was too hot to even read or write as the sweat made all the pages damp. Luckily, I’d seen an office at the entrance to El Panchan with a sign that said internet. Great, I can upload some photos, update the blog and do some research for our next destination. All Adrian could think about was catching up on his favourite tv shows. After breakfast we walked over to the office but as we were walking up the stairs a woman told us no internet today.

“¿Cuando?” I asked, “¿Mañana? ¿El dia proximo?”

The woman just shook her head and laughed in a way that let me know that the internet hadn’t worked in a long time and it would probably be even longer until they had it again. No wonder they didn’t take web reservations.

Oh well, it was just the excuse we needed to go check out the town.

We hopped on the collectivo getting off at the bus station so we could pick up our bus tickets to Tulum. Then set off to search for an optician so Adrian could get his glasses tightened. The town was as unattractive as the guidebook had warned us and it was also hotter than the jungle – a quick look at my thermometer let me know it was 39 degrees and probably 90% humidity judging by the way my skin felt.

Not finding an optician we took refuge in an internet café and spent the next two hours trying to figure out accommodation in Tulum. Soon we were wondering why we were even going there. Every hostel, beach cabana and budget hotel had bad reviews. And worse yet everything was double what were used to paying in Mexico. I finally just gave up and booked the cabana that didn’t have bedbugs mentioned in its reviews. They only had a three person cabana available but it was roughly the same price as the two person one. Sigh. At least Adrian was happy to have caught up on his favourite programs. I however, was sick of the internet so we left to resume our search for an optician. The two we eventually found were shut (siesta perhaps?) so I walked into a computer repair shop and asked to borrow a small screwdriver – well I mimed borrowing a small screwdriver which worked. However, Adrian’s glasses didn’t need to be tightened after all. All that sweat for nothing. So it was back to El Panchan for one final night once again failing to stay up for the full night of music and fire dancing.