I Know a Dead Parrot When I See One...

(If you don't recognise the Monty Python skit, shame on you!)

After tearing ourselves away from the beach we spent a day restocking our dwindling supplies of food, water, beer & petrol. We then headed inland, crossing an incredibly windy estuary that logically was home to a huge windfarm and made for an interesting drive.

We wound our way up to about 600m above sea-level & headed 3km down a dirt road to a community cooperative-run area of natural beauty, Cascadas El Aguacero. After over 750 steps down into the sandy bottom of the deep canyon we had a wonderful natural shower under the cool waterfall & lounged in the more bath-like (albeit a lukewarm one) river. The carpark gradually emptied & we spent a lovely quiet night with electricity from their incredible solar power set up with just the resident cat for company.

Despite the temptation to descend back to the lush waterfalls we headed on another couple of hours to another eco-tourism place, Sima de las Cotorras (aka Sinkhole of the Parrots). I don't think I need to explain much more about this place, but we spent a lazy afternoon watching them sweep down x-wing stylee to their roosts on the cavernous walls to a raucous screeching from the existing inhabitants. We even got up at sunrise to see them spiralling out for the day too.

We then cruised an hour or so down the road to El Cañón del Sumidero (Canyon of the Drain!), and took a couple of hours boat trip into the national park. It was a fun ride on a fast boat and we saw plenty of crocs sunning themselves on the banks. After such an early start it was only early afternoon so we decided to plow on to our next destination, the much anticipated San Cristóbal de las Casas, climbing from a few hundred metres up to over 2,000 in only 40 minutes (fortunately it was a decent road, albeit a toll one).Read more