Palenque 31/5 - 1/6

Stu.
Hey there, so ok we have heard lots of tales about buses getting mugged at night by gangs of machette weilding, gun toting Mexicans so have decided not to take might buses anywhere. A sensible precaution to avoid what would undoubtaly be a negative experience, right?
All well and good but unfortunately the buses that leave Tulum to Palenque leave at 4.30pm, 6.30pm or 8.30pm. and as it´s an 11 hour journey we have our first dilemma ( other than the sunburn, bites and rain!...ok it´s like our 4th dilemma - we´re full on with dilemmas up to now on this trip!)
Anyway what to do? At this point i´ve decided that we will be robbed in the middle of the night and all that we need to do now is decide where to stash out debit and credit cards to lose as little as possible when the inevitable happens!! Just as a reassurance to parents and folk who might worry there are probably 95% of travellers who dont have any problems when travelling - I´m just a little paranoid.
We can´t let fear of possibilities stop us from doing things otherwise we may as well come home now. We bought the tickets, packed the credit cards in out big rucksacks that are going under the bus amidst some smelly, dirty clothes (the ones in our rucksacks- not just on the bus) and away we go.
Now we haven´t been sleeping well so the thought of 11 hours on the night bus was a little much so before we boarded we hit the farmacia for some sleeping pills - tried our limited spanish and asked for sleeping cake instead! After a questioning gaze from the shopkeeper we managed to make ourselves understood and got some Nytol.

Not much else to say about the journey, 2 Nytol and a beer makes for a good journey, although on top of the malaria tablets of which a side effect is some very strange realistic dreams it meant I was quite jumpy and kept waking whenever we slowed down, convinced the bandits were getting on!
So Palenque - We went to a small village in the jungle, it had a couple of hostels and restaraunts. In the afternoon we headed to the Ruins - Mayan ruins deep in the jungle that are spread over 15 kilometers. They were quite spectacular! some very cool photos were taken, check them out on the link.
So we walked around, got caught in downpours and headed back.
The jungle is a place where you should be issued a hard hat, every few minutes there is a loud thud as some random fruit/spiney thing drops from the trees and explodes as it hits the ground.
Next stop San Cristobal