Cerca de Palenque

Photos at Flickr

I was awoken this morning by what must have been a howler monkey. Though my first thought after waking was that some dogs had cornered a jaguar. When I went outside to investigate however, the sound was clearly coming from high up in a neighboring tree. The sound was not at all what I had expected howler monkeys to sound like. It was a rough, and menacing call. One I wouldn't want to experience while alone in the forest. It was a lone monkey and calls went on for perhaps half an hour. It was a surreal experience to be awoken like that.

Misol Ha was everything I had hoped it would be. Thirty five meters is really very high. And the jungle setting made it that much better. Some people were swimming in the pool at the base. I did not. The waterfall was perfect, but the water was very murky. We were headed to Agua Azul next, so I didn't bother getting in here. There is a path that winds around the waterfall and then along the cliff face behind it. At the end is a cave. I went in as far as I could, wading in the knee deep water running out of it. There were no lights and after perhaps 30 feet and a slight bend it was nearly pitch black. I hadn't thought to bring my flashlight, but I went on a little further by taking photos with a flash and then looking at the photo for directions.

I hadn't really known what to expect from Agua Azul. I'd heard it was great, better even than Misol Ha. It was great, though totally different from Misol Ha. While the waterfall had had a sense of the exotic and deep jungle (despite the easy access by bus), Agua Azul had more of a tropical paradise feel. The streambed was mostly exposed limestone into which the water had eroded a great many pools and short falls. The stream (in NM this would be called a river) would pool up and then flow over some some small chutes and founded faces of limestone into the next pool and then over and down some more chutes. In all there were several dozen pools ranging in size from a large bathtub to a very large swimming pool. True to its name, where the waters pooled, they were a deep turquoise color. Quite a stunning sight, and reminded me a lot of Yellowstone in how the water flowed down these rounded faces and chutes. Most of the pools were open for swimming, and lots of people were taking advantage of this. I did as well.