Another Mexico Adventure

Just back from Mexico...Again...helping Lori's parents with a group of 80. It is the end of a very wet rainy season--that was still going--which made for the best weather ever: Cooler in the tropics, greener in the highlands...awesome altogether. Every experience was fantastic. Fewer mosquitoes in La Venta park, Villa Hermosa, but more coatimudi's (see picture). Palenque was near deserted allowing us to climb around on the ruins and me to discover a whole, new breathtaking experience exploring the "Palacio", its courtyards, sculptures and underground passageways...before a sudden shower drenched us all with a delightful cooling effect. The air was actually refreshing (rare in the tropics) riding the small wooden "lanchas" down the Usumusinta River to Yachillan (I looked for the watch I lost there in 2004 when I fell down by the Acropolis, but the jungle had grown up so much through the rocks, the effort was near hopeless. A howler monkey is probably wearing it and enjoying his newfound prestige.) The drive by beautiful lake Catemaco was great as usual and Cerro Vejia (The Mesoamerican "Cumorah") was only lightly shrouded in mist and ideal for picture-taking with the faint strains of Mexican band music rifting up form the valley below in San Andres Tuxla. Oaxaca was a bit tense with burned out bus barricades and newly applied graffiti citywide, the result of recent teacher strikes and anti state government demonstrations, but the outlying towns as quaint as ever. A night in Vera Cruz eating a scrumptious shrimp cocktail on the plaza was awesome. Finally a visit to the always impressive Teotihuacan Ruins in Mexico City and the world-famous Archeological Museum off Reforma topped off a wonderful trip. Great people and great and memorable experiences.