Traveling Italy by Train

Sometimes you make your own fun! My friends and I traveled around Italy together for three weeks. Neither of them had ever traveled internationally (except to Mexico, where we all have homes), so it was up to me to do the planning. Not that I minded, as you might have guessed from last Wednesday's post. They got to travel for three weeks; in my way, I was there for a year.

The photo above shows what turned out to be my favorite part of the trip - the picnics we ate on the trains as we traveled. Most hotels had a check-out time around 11am to noon and a check-in time of either one or two in the afternoon. We took advantage of that fact to plan all of our travel between towns during that time. It worked perfectly!

The night before, we went to the best deli or cheese shop we could find and bought small chunks three or four different cheeses - almost always pecorino. We loved that sheep cheese! Then we went to a wine shop and chose whatever looked good to us that day, making sure that we tried a large variety over the course of the trip. Nothing expensive, though; we usually spent less than $10US. Our last stop was a fruit stand or store where we bought apples or pears or figs and maybe some kind of crackers. We wrapped everything carefully and packed it in my daypack with plastic cups, paper napkins, my Swiss Army knife and a corkscrew. Our lunch was ready to go when we were.

If we were moving to a new town, we checked out of our hotel around 11am and walked to the train station. Sometimes I had an idea when the train would run, but if not, we just checked the schedules when we got there and bought our tickets for the next available train. We never pre-bought tickets, which would have required us to be in a certain place at a certain time.  Almost all the trains run frequently, and I think we only had one time where a train was sold out. We had to wait for about an hour for the next one.

We were usually able to find seats with a table in the middle, but not always. Whatever was there, we made it work. As soon as we got our luggage settled, I started pulling our feast out of the daypack. We always drew quite a bit of attention, but it was the good kind of attention - people remembering times they'd done the same thing or wishing that they had thought of it themselves. We couldn't share much of their language but the smiles all around were easy to understand.

We arrived at our destination relaxed from the wine, hunger satisfied, and ready to continue with our adventure.

Boquette, Panama

The mountains around the town of Boquette

A lot of Americans and Canadians are moving to the town of Boquette in western Panama, so we decided to take a trip there to see for ourselves what was attracting this migration. We flew in to Panama City and then took an overnight bus to David and then a smaller bus to Boquette.

When we arrived, clouds were clinging to the nearby volcano and a mist was settling down on the community. It wasn't enough to really get us wet, but we weren't entirely dry, either. We dropped our stuff off at our little hotel overlooking the river and set off to explore.

Boquette sits in a steep-sided bowl between mountains, so there isn't a lot of walking on level ground. Add to that the crumbling or non-existant sidewalks and we spent more time with our eyes on the ground than looking at the town.

Once we had visited the nearby botanical garden and the local expat hang-out, we weren't really sure how to keep ourselves occupied in that small town. Our hotel rented out motorbikes, so we decided to take a ride into the mountains.  The manager went over the motorbike to be sure all was well and then explained how to follow the route he suggested.

Once Terry had started the bike, I hopped on the back and we took off over the river and up the road climbing the mountainside. The scenery was beautiful and I was happy that he was driving so I could just enjoy it.

All was going well until we came around a curve to find that the road ahead was much steeper than what we had been experiencing so far. We got as much of a running start as we could, but we had barely started up that steep part when the bike began slowing noticably.  It finally came to a stop; it just couldn't carry us both up the hill. Since I didn't know how to drive a motorbike, it made sense that I was the one to get off and walk while Terry continued up the hill on the bike. He never got too far ahead of me - just went a little way and then stopped until I caught up.

The altitude wasn't too bad, but my exercise-induced asthma really had me gasping for breath. He came up with the idea of letting me sit on the bike while he walked along side balancing it and giving it just enough gas to haul me, and pull him, up the hill. It turned out that it was just too hard to control it that way, so I went back to walking. With slow and steady progress, I finally made it to the top. After resting a bit to regain my breath, we hopped on the bike and started down the other side of the hill. Oh, yeah - downhill!!!

We hadn't gone far when the brakes decided not to respond very well. It was all Terry could do to keep the bike under control. When we finally got to a spot that was a bit more level than the rest, he was barely able to get us stopped. Fortunately, we were very near one of the few homes on that road. We jumped off the bike and walked it back toward the house. The lady who lived there had seen us coming and met us at the bottom of her driveway.

She rescued us by calling the hotel and then giving us a cup of tea and some company while we waited for someone to arrive to take care of the problem. When the guy finally came, he made a few adjustments to the brakes and started to get back in his truck, saying he would meet us back at the hotel. We told him to forget that idea. He could take the damned motorbike back; we were driving down in the truck. He made it back OK, but when we saw how steep that road was, we were very happy that we weren't on that bike. No wonder the brakes were worn out!

Back at the hotel, we got a refund, went to the store and bought some wine, and celebrated our survival. We were very ready to get out of Boquette on the morning bus.

Ronda, Spain

I knew I would love Ronda before I ever got there. I fell in love with the city from reading Nick Bantock's The Forgetting Room. His protagonist is an American bookbinder who inherits a home in Ronda after the death of his artist grandfather. The grandfather has left him clues that lead him to remember how he had loved art as a boy. 

The city of Ronda is built on a high mesa with the old medieval town connected to the newer part of town over the bridge in this photo. Bantock's character becomes obsessed with drawing and painting this bridge. Who can blame him?

                






All of the buildings in Ronda are painted white and have tile roofs. The streets are paved with flat stones. This photo shows the newer part of the town and was taken from old town. Even though much of the new town was quite old, I preferred the old town much more. It was easy to imagine that I was back in the Middle Ages as I wandered around. 

 

It is easy to see from this photo that Ronda was pretty secure from attack except from the bridge and the road at the other end of the old town. Most of the edge of this cliff is park so I was able to walk along the top and enjoy the view below. I could see for miles in all directions.

There is a river that divides the two mesas that make up the town. I climbed down a scary almost vertical tunnel cut through the cliff to give access to the water of the river in case of siege. The climb down took a long time, but up was much worse, of course.

I enjoy  finding "dream homes" when I travel - places I would like to live, assuming that money was no object. I found this one just at the bottom of the cliff pictured in the photo above. A river flows by just out of sight so there should be lots of water for all my grapes. I think I could be happy in my little stone cottage with a nice pool to keep cool on those hot summer days.

Just to be sure I learned what I'd need to know for growing my grapes, I made sure to visit the Museum of Wines of Ronda and tasted all that they had to offer.

I really enjoyed my visit to Ronda and wish I had been able to spend more time there. Maybe some day I could rent a little house for a summer to really get the feel of living there. 

Planning the Trip is Part of the Adventure!

I don't have enough money to be on the road as much as I'd like. I'm happy if I can put together the money for one three-week trip to foreign country a year. But I have figured out a way to enjoy that trip for up to a year before I even leave home.

Travel Guides

The first thing I do is to buy a Lonely Planet for my next destination, usually a whole year ahead of time. Of course, there are other perfectly fine travel guides out there, but I've found that Lonely Planet works best with my style of travel. I'm not a backpacker, exactly, but I like to travel light and inexpensively.

I sit down with my travel guide and read about the history, economy, and culture of my destination. I want to learn a bit about the different areas of the country and what they offer to a traveler that is different from what I have seen somewhere else. I want to know about the people and their culture.

Language Study

If I don't speak the language of my destination, I begin to study it. Even if many of the people can speak English, I've learned that I am accepted much more readily if I can show them that I've at least made an attempt to learn the native language. Plus, I will understand what is going on around me so much better.

Now, I know that I'll never be very proficient in a year of casual study, but I'll at least learn the numbers and polite phrases. Understanding how a sentence is constructed in that language can help a lot. And a few common verbs.

My favorite source for this is Rosetta Stone, but that's partly because I found an inexpensive set of older disks and bought them up a few years ago. There are other sources, too. Libraries have many different sets of language tapes or CDs. There are also community education classes, and lots of free classes online. You can learn quite a bit if you consistently devote a half hour or so a day to studying.

Eat Food from Your Destination

Going to India? How about starting a quest to find the best Indian restaurant in your area? Or get cookbooks and cook that food at home. I love to buy those beautiful cookbooks with lots of photos that, along with recipes, tell about shopping and mealtime traditions in the country. There are also tons of ethnic recipes online. 

Before I went to Italy last year I found a gelato store near my home. I walked there for a small gelato every day. I told them I was practicing for my trip.

Find Out What Other Travelers Liked

Again, the Internet offers so much. My favorite source here is Trip Advisor. Enter your destination and read about where others have been and what they liked best. Where are their favorite hotels and restaurants? What were their favorite activities? Look at the photos they took. Use this information to help decide exactly which parts of the country you want to visit and what to avoid.

Books and Music

Find novels that take place in your country. Do a Google search to find out what's available. Listen to music, either contemporary or traditional, from your destination.

Decide Where to Stay

There are many web sites that specialize in arranging reservations. The one I like best is Venere.com. I have had very good luck with this company. Every listing that I have seen has been exactly as advertised. But there are other options that are becoming more popular all the time, such as Airbnb which can set you up in a room in some one's house, or even in a whole house. Or what about a home exchange?

What if You Can't Afford to Travel?

I know, the economy stinks right now. No one can afford to go anywhere. Consider using some of these ideas above to plan a virtual vacation. Even if you can't really go, you can have a lot of fun if you follow these ideas. And you won't even have to pay for the plane tickets or hotel rooms.

Happy traveling!

Hvar, Dalmatian Coast, Croatia

The View from Our Hotel Balcony

Relaxing in Hvar

I'd been hauling my suitcase around for three and a half weeks by the time we reached Hvar. Tamra had joined me two weeks earlier. We both decided we were ready for a couple of days of down time and our location here couldn't have been nicer. So we adjusted our schedule a bit so that we could stick around longer than we'd planned.

Hvar is a pretty little town - clean, quiet, and comfortable - with just enough to keep us occupied for a few days of kicking back and relaxing. As in most towns on the Dalmatian Coast area, the entire town is built of limestone - the roads, the walkways, and the buildings - so everything is white except the green plants and the startling blue water.

Exploring Town

Old Hvar begins at a promenade lining the small harbor and wrapping around a couple of points. From there it climbs steeply up a hillside and over the hill where our hotel was situated. We wandered the town's narrow streets - really not much more than paths - that allowed us to peek into the gardens behind the houses and get a feel for life in Hvar.

We drank great wines but were disappointed that we couldn't find the wonderful Pecorino (sheep) cheeses that we had enjoyed in Italy. We ate a fantastic beef tenderloin meal, even though they had to move us and our table when it started to sprinkle. We also had a very expensive but mediocre "Slow Food" meal one night and a really bad undercooked (hard) risotto the next. Many times we walked past a seafood restaurant near our hotel that kept many of it's offerings alive until just before dinner time. I don't know why we never ate there, but seeing the live fish made us think about fishing.

Let's Go Fishing!

One day, we noticed a tourist stand set up offering boat rides to various nearby islands. Tamra fishes with Terry and I all the time, so we both know what we are doing with a rod and reel. We hadn't seen any fish in the water, but it was so clean and beautiful, we knew they must be out there somewhere. Besides, we thought it would be fun to go home and brag that we'd been deep-sea fishing in Croatia.

The kid in the booth spoke English so we explained what we had in mind. It soon became apparent that he knew nothing about fishing, but we didn't care about that, as long as the boat captain did. It turned out that he had never arranged a fishing trip before but he told us to come back later that afternoon and he would have it all set up for us.

When we returned at five, he greeted us with a big smile and proceeded to tell us what he had arranged for us. The following morning, we would go out in a small fishing boat for four hours. During that time, we would have the opportunity to experience four different styles of fishing: cast nets, bottom fishing, jigging with a hand line, and, finally, trolling. OK... so they obviously didn't get many people wanting to go sportfishing. They had absolutely no idea what we were talking about. I was surprised to see that Tamra still seemed to be considering the trip. She asked about the price, and when he told us that it would be 500 euros - over $700US - for that four-hour joke, we looked at each other and laughed before we walked away.

Belem, Lisbon, Portugal

     
Torre de Belem

On the outskirts of Lisbon, on the northern bank of the Tagus River, is an area called Belem where I spent a long wonderful day. Portugal had been a last-minute addition to my trip so I hadn't done as much research as I normally do, and my "Mediteranean on a Shoestring" Lonely Planet was ancient and falling apart, so I'm not even sure how I found my way here, but it was one of the highlights of my trip.

The Torre de Belem was built as part of a system of defense for Lisbon during the early 16th century. The dungeon of the limestone building also served as a prison for about 250 years.

The upper rooms of the tower are reached via a single limestone spiral staircase worn smooth over the centuries. Since it provides the only route up and down, it is usually quite crowded, and I highly recommend holding out for the wide outside part of the stairs rather than the narrow inside.

                                                               Fireplace in one corner of one of the rooms

While some areas of the castle were quite crowded, the smaller rooms were cool and quiet. I found myself hiding out there and trying to picture what it would be like to live in these rooms. I decided I would like it a lot, as long as I could add a kitchen and a bathroom and get rid of the tourists.

In 1983, the tower, along with the nearby Mostiero dos Jeronimos (Jeronimos Monastery) became a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Mostiero dos Jeronimos

This beautiful monastery, near the beach, was built to provide support to the pilgrims traveling to the area. It contains a church that served as a house of prayer for seamen leaving the port and returning home.

The original buildings were greatly expanded with money raised by taxing the valuable eastern spices and now contain the tombs of famous explorers, such as Vasco da Gama.

The monastery is large and has many places explore. I spent hours wandering it's corridors, cloisters and lofts.

Last year I read a book in which part of the story took place in this monastery.  I found myself immediately back in Belem and could picture exactly what the author was describing. It put me right in the middle of the action!

Padrao dos Descobrimentos

Also on the shores of the Tagus River, this monument proudly celebrates Portugal's role in the Age of Discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries. Representing a ship with sails, the statute is manned by 33 people important to Portuguese exploration lead by Henry the Navigator at the bow. I suppose I knew about Portugal's role in exploration, but this really brought it home for me. I left here wanting to learn more.

The building inside contains a cultural center, meeting rooms, an exhibition hall, and an elevator to a fantastic view from the observation deck on top.

Casa Pasteis de Belem

Definitely the highlight of the day was my visit to the famous bakery serving these wonderful treats. Customers form long lines stretching outside for their turn to buy Pasteis de Nata.

Pasteis de Nata are tiny pies made of a creamy custard in a wonderful light flaky crust. The pasteis were first made before the 18th century by the Catholic monks at the Jeronimos Monastery. When the monastery closed in 1820, Casa Pasteis de Belem became the first place outside the convent to sell them.

A warning here...Do not make the mistake I did and buy only one! I promise that you will want more but you will not want to wait in the line again. Diet be damned! Go ahead and buy a few. You won't be sorry! I found them in downtown Lisbon but they were nowhere near as good.

Ocampo, Michoacan, Mexico

The Monarch Butterfly Preserve

Our local English-language newspaper has an article this week about the monarch butterflies of Michoacan.  Unfortunately, the number of butterflies is down by about 30% and the number of people visiting them is down by an equal amount. It seems that environmental stress and the threat of cartel violence are the causes. I'm glad we went a couple of years ago in better times.

The hike up to the butterflies was pretty tough for me because the air was cold, the trail was steep, and the altitude high. With my asthma, we had to stop a lot to rest - for some reason Terry worried when he noticed my lips turning blue - but we saw many guides pass by with small packs on their backs. We had started early and climbed slowly and only later did I learn that all those packs carried small oxygen canisters, for visitors just like me.

The experience was well worth the struggle, though . We got to the top of the trail a few minutes before the sun came up over the mountain, which is the goal. We saw 'sleeping' butterflies dotting the ground and park rangers carefully moving them so they wouldn't be trampled. Above us, the tree branches, heavy with butterflies, were more orange and black than green. Who would have ever thought that butterflies could cause large branches to droop under their weight?

The magic began as the rising sun struck the branches, for as the butterflies felt the warmth, they took flight by the thousands. The sky was literally full of the fluttering orange and black creatures. I'll never climb that mountain again, but it was an experience that I'll never forget.

The Village of Ocampo

Equally as fun, and a lot less work, was our visit to Ocampo, the town nearest the park entrance where we slept the night before our climb.  We drove around the white-washed village looking for an inexpensive hotel, but we couldn't seem to find anything. When we saw three men standing on the street corner, we pulled over so I could ask for information. "Disculpe, senores. Donde esta un hotel economico?" (Excuse me, gentlemen. Where is an inexpensive hotel?) The three guys looked at each other and one turned to me and said, "No hablo Ingles." (I don't speak English.) For just a minute I was confused, and then I told the guy that I wasn't speaking English! I think he was so convinced that I would speak English to him that his brain just kind of shut down before he realized that I was speaking Spanish.

We decided to look elsewhere for someone to ask and as we drove by the shady plaza, we came to the police station. We stopped again to ask and, before we knew it, we had a police officer sitting in our back seat holding his M-16 in his lap and giving us directions. Having heard stories about bad cops in Mexico, I was very uncomfortable about the situation, but what could I do? He took us to a nice little hotel, and when no one was around, he had us wait while he walked to the owner's house to find someone to check us in! We tried to give him a tip before he headed back to the station, but he wouldn't accept it.

We had a few other surprises in store for us in Ocampo. The first was the discovery of a street named 'John Lennon'. I would have loved to find out how that came about, but before I could ask, we were sidetracked by the number of children who were greeting us in English as we walked around the plaza. It is not unusual to run across one or two that might give a shy "Hello" but we had never seen so many! Finally, after one little girl said, "Hello. How are you?", we asked her parents why so many of the kids spoke English. The father explained that most of the adults in that town had been to the US to work and,realizing the value of being bilingual, they insisted that the school teach English to the children in all grade levels.

On our way back to the hotel that evening, we ducked into a candy store - literally. This place had so much candy that it was even hanging in bags from hooks on the ceiling. Mexicans tend to be short, especially if they have a lot of Indian blood, so these bags of candy hung down to about five and a half feet off the ground. Terry, at 6' 2", had to walk through the store bent over at the waist! Even so, he was delighted to discover some giant marshmallows, at least three inches across, so when we returned to our room we each carried a big bag.

Tena, Ecuador

Amazon Jungle Tour

We went to Ecuador to consider whether we'd be interested in relocating there because some people we know have moved to Cuenca and love it.  Mostly, we were disappointed. It was too high and too cold in the Andes for us. But we did try out the lowlands on both sides of the Andes and found that we were much more comfortable there.

We only had a couple of days in Tena, which is advertised (along with many other places) as the headwaters of the Amazon.  Actually, Tena is wilder but similar in many ways to where we live in Mexico, which is probably why we felt comfortable there.

We had no plans for our short stay there so we decided to take the Jungle Tour offered by our hotel. It was wonderful!

Our guide was a Kichwa healer, as had been his grandparents. His main focus is to travel through the area to small villages and teach the young people about birth control. He told us that it is very common for marriages to take place between girls of 13 or 14 and boys of 15. By the time they are 20, they may have four or five children, and they just never stop. He gives these tours to raise money to fund his work in the villages.

When they passed out high rubber boots to protect us from any insects or snakes we might encounter, I began to have second thoughts, but our guide assured me that it would be fine and we set off into the jungle. We were accompanied by a large German shephard who at first seemed like a pet, but turned out to be our protector. The guide carried a machete but never took a step without that dog going ahead to watch for trouble. Oh, great!

The trail, or what there was of it, climbed steeply to the top of a high ridge, the temperature and humidity rising with every step, and we had to stop to look around, because while we were moving we had to keep our eyes on the trail. The jungle was too thick for any distant views but there seemed to be something interesting in every direction, like the rotting log above covered with perfectly white mushrooms. I was glad for the rest to catch my breath, but even happier when we started back down. 

Except down was hard, too, because it was so steep.  And as we approached the gully at the bottom, the ground turned into mud. As I said, it wasn't much of a trail.  The guide used his machete to clear branches from our path. There were downed trees and giant rocks that we had to climb over and small streams we waded through, always holding on to something to catch ourselves when our boots slipped in the mud. And about that downhill part? It just lead to the next uphill and many more.

Our guide was very good, sharing lots of information about the types of jungle we were passing through and, most interesting to me, the many medicinal plants and their uses. One tree was called Dragon's Blood. He used his machete to cut a small slice and then a leaf to catch some of the thick blood-red sap that dripped out, explaining that this sap is used to help heal bruises.  Then he scooped up some dirt from the ground to carefully seal the wound he had made in the tree.

The bumpy branch pictured above is the source of curare, which is used in anesthesia and to poison arrows.  They also called it Monkey Ladder.

My favorite was the "walking trees" which actually move (a little bit) to try to stay in the best sunlight as other trees grow up around them. They do this by leaning toward the sun and then putting down an aerial root to give them support.

After hours of sweating as we tramped up and down the steep hillsides, we finally came to a refreshingly cool river and our guide passed out the lunches he had been carrying in his pack. After a nice rest in the shade, my feet in cooling in the river, we waded across and entered a flatter area with some signs of cultivation.  The pod above is cacao - chocolate in it's natural form. Inside are seeds that are filled with what looks like dark chocolate but the taste is enough to cure the most passionate chocoholic!

Our final stop was at the home of a Kichwa family. The mother of the house demonstrated how they make yucca milk, which we all liked. The guide had explained to us that the reason we had seen no sign of animals in the jungle was because they had been overhunted until nothing survived.  The people of this area lived almost entirely on yucca, which, while healthy, is certainly not a complete diet, so there are many health problems.

The family which occupies this house numbered around 10-12 people, probably four generations. They didn't speak Spanish, so we couldn't really communicate, but I was very happy that I had lots of leftover lunch that I could share with them. 

The dog in the photo was our mascot and protector.  During the tour, I had assumed that he was protecting us from animals. Our guide made sure he was always in front of us but since there were no animals, I now have to wonder if he was really there to prevent bandits from approaching. I wouldn't have wanted to know that then, because I couldn't have enjoyed such a great experience if I was worried the whole time.

Madrid, Spain

Churros and Hot Chocolate to Start a Day in Madrid 

I arrived in Madrid around 7am after flying from Guadalajara via Houston and Newark. I had already been traveling forever and still was a long way from my goal in Portugal. My train to Lisbon did not leave until about 9pm, so I checked my luggage at the train station and set out to explore Madrid.

I didn't have any real goal for the day. I had an ancient Lonely Planet that said the Prado Museum would be closed that day - bad luck! So I tore out the map page and set out to see what I could find.

I had tried churros and hot chocolate in the states and thought it was only okay, but I had heard that it was wonderful in Madrid, so my first stop was at the Chocolateria San Gines. It was colder than I'd expected, so I was looking forward to the hot drink. But that's not what I was served.

The churros, served hot from the grease, were thin and crispy on the outside and perfectly cooked in the middle - much better than the ones I'd had before that were thicker so the inside was often kind of mushy. But it was the chocolate that I'll never forget! This wasn't the drink I was expecting. It was more like super extra rich dark chocolate pudding right out of the pan when it has just cooled enough that you can stand to touch your tongue to it. It is not intended for drinking, but for spooning and dunking. And the combination of the two - heaven! The crispy churro coated with the thick rich chocolate was to die for!

My luck continued - it turned out later that the Prado was open so I spent most of my day enjoying the wonderful paintings. And then I discovered another smaller museum across the street that was showing a collection of works of Albrecht Durer, my all-time favorite artist. What an unexpected treat!

By this time, my legs were killing me and I was starving. I was very tempted to return to the chocolateria for dinner but I had feasted on art for lunch instead of food so I decided that would probably not be the best idea. I found a lovely plaza with a great little sidewalk restaurant where I spent a couple of hours over a wonderful dinner and more than one glass of red wine. After a long flight and a busy day, it was wonderful to just relax and watch the world go by until it was time to return to the train station.

Tikal, Guatemala

Temple 1, Tikal
We sat on the front step of our Flores hotel in the semi-dark, entertained by the cries of the neighborhood birds waking up long before the sun and fighting over who got to sit on the peak of the house across the street - apparently a favorite spot. The bus picked us up at 4:30am so we'd have a chance to enjoy the Mayan ruins before the heat and humidity of the afternoon made us miserable.

Everyone was half-asleep during the first part of the hour and fifteen minute bus ride, but it didn't matter because we couldn't see anything out in the dark countryside. As the sky lightened, our local guide began explaining the history of the Mayan people and the importance of the 2,000 year old ruins.

The bus trip was timed to arrive at the gates of the national park at 6am, just as they opened. The towering jungle on both sides of the 17 kilometer park road kept the ruins hidden from view until we pulled into the visitor's center parking area. Although our tour included a guide, my boyfriend had been there before, so we hurried off on our own to beat the crowds to Temple 4 - at about two kilometers distant, the furthest from the entrance.

We paused about half way to catch our breaths and I took the above photo of the pyramid called Temple 1 before the morning fog burned off. We next came to Temple 3, which has not yet been uncovered and allowed us to see what the ruins looked like when the first white explorers found them - really nothing but a steep rocky hill covered with trees and vines.

At Temple 4 we climbed the wooden stairway as high as we were allowed to go and were surprised to see that quite a few people had beat us there. They must have been staying at the hotel that is located near the visitor's center. We were on a stone platform with "steps" where we could sit while we enjoyed the view.  Terry told me that, in the old days, visitors were allowed to climb to the tops of all the pyramids and the best thing was to be on top of Temple 4 to watch the sun rise and set.

Our perch put us above the jungle canopy with a clear view of the tops of some of the higher temples.  Screaming howler monkeys sounded like some horrible creatures were coming through the jungle to get us.  At times, they were loud enough that we had to shout to hear each other. We could have stayed longer but we had a lot to see, so we climbed down the long staircase and headed off toward the area called El Mundo Perdido - the lost world. 

It was interesting to wander around El Mundo Perdido, a large complex of almost 40 structures from many different periods with another large pyramid in the center. As we approached the Gran Plaza, Terry said he'd seen it all before and lay down on a bench in the shade for a nap while I climbed another long staircase up the side of Temple 2, the Temple of the Masks.

Temples 1 and 2 face each other across the Gran Plaza, so I had a great view from the top back toward Temple 1 and to the many other buildings in this area. I wished I had been there in the days when visitors were allowed to climb the stone stairs of all the pyramids, but that was stopped because too many people fell to their deaths. 

As Terry enjoyed his shady nap, I went on exploring. As monkeys played in the trees nearby, I jealously watched people climbing up the actual stone steps of Temple 5 but by that time my thighs had decided that I'd climbed enough pyramids for that day. 

We spent the last hour before our noon departure following long paths to some of the less crowded areas of the ruins, enjoying the peace of being alone. I almost felt like a jungle explorer, but I was very happy that I couldn't hear the howlers any more.