Day 28 - San Pedro to Carmelita

Catharine didn’t sleep well and feels generally fatigued and the stage looks uninspiring - a straight main road into the wind - so decides to take the van direct to the hotel. A few others are doing likewise. John rides the stage and confirms it was pretty uninspiring.
We get to the hotel about lunchtime - there are thatched apartments looking into a lake type body of water.
Catharine and 4 others (not John) have opted for a boat trip along the river to see some Mayan ruins. Didn’t really know what to expect but was surprised when it turned out that it was a speed boat and it was just over an hours ride each way. I switched on my garmin watch as I was interested to see the route and I could see the network of small rivers as we sped along - sometimes it got really narrow, sometimes it widened out - there was thick rainforest either side all the way after the first 10 minutes with no break apart from one settlement about halfway (a Mennonite religious settlement). We saw one boat and other than that nobody. It was great zooming along with the wind in your hair feeling like you were a real explorer as even when we got to the ruins - which were immense - we saw nobody. The oldest of the temples was built 100 BC and there were lots of temples - with loads more to be excavated. The Howler monkeys were making an absolute racket (see video) - they sounded like angry dinosaurs- and the ruins seemed to be everywhere amongst the roots of the jungle trees. A truly enchanting and amazing place. The signs and maps were hand written so it had the feel of a place just being discovered even though that was not the case.
The archaeologists were apparently in the middle of excavating a temple and our guide said they were accepting volunteers- I thought that it would be interesting- and then re thought about it and decided it would probably get pretty boring ! And there would be nothing to do at the end of a day - other than get eaten by insects !
We returned to the boat and started the trip back and dusk fell while we were still some 30 minutes from our hotel. Goodness knows how the guy could see - we had no lights in the boat and where the river narrowed and there were trees draping over, it was so dark as we sped along at about 25-30mph (I could see speed from my Garmin watch that was still recording journey!).
Eventually the lights of the hotel came into view and he moored the boat at the jetty in the dark.Read more