A couple of photos of the gardens whilst we waited for the dining room to open for breakfast.
What an effective fence!
I had to giggle at the size of the water bottle here (French group) and wonder if one person was drinking the lot or if it got passed around the coach yuk!
Today we had a 5 hour drive to the Sumidero Canyon which, for me, was going to be one of the highlights of the trip as we were taking a boat ride through the giant gorge and hopefully seeing all kinds of birds and wildlife. As usual we stopped about every 2 hours for a loo break (a few weak bladders in the group) and invariably the men buy snacks and drinks to keep them going until the next proper meal.
Given his hat he really should have been on a horse not a bike.
You can see the size of the petrol forecourt on this one.
There are often army or police check points on the road, their purpose we didn't know, I had to take this carefully as photographing the military is generally frowned upon.
Arriving at the Canyon's boat station I realised it would be a speed boat ride rather than a leisurely punt.
This little scamp was entertaining himself chucking stones at an empty drinks bottle on the ramp down to the boat- what a fabulous face he has.
Having donned life jackets we walked the gangplank onto our little boat. Unfortunately I was sat behind two of the larger men at the front who tended to block my view either side - normally Ian and I sit side by side so he can move out of the way for photos but someone else had that seat and so he was behind me.
Unfortunately being a speed boat we went at speed and whilst we did slow down occasionally for the most of the time we were just whizzing along and the chance of spotting something, let alone being able to photograph it, was low.
There were a couple of crocodiles who clearly basked in the same spot each day as the boatman knew exactly where they'd be.
This one was getting really annoyed with the butterfly and in the end decided the only way of shaking it off was to submerge itself.
Heron and Pelican posing nicely.
But unfortunately that's the only wildlife I could photograph. We saw quite a few more birds and Ian spotted an Iguana but although we'd been told by Francisco to shout if we saw something, the boatman didn't slow down.
The canyon is 35 million years old, 1km deep and about 13km long. A few snaps as we whizzed along.
There were supposed to be amazing colours in the rocks in this little cove - vaguely pink I suppose.
Stalactites forming on the walls.
One small area had mixed vegetation growing all over the canyon wall which is known as the Christmas Tree - I can see why.
Near the water these purple flowers grew in profusion.
I dared to expose my lens to the spray coming down from the waterfall above.
King Charles III?
A few of the group were a bit annoyed as apparently we were supposed to be in the boat for 1 1/2 hours but the trip was barely 50 mins. Personally, I'd had enough!
Whilst we'd be on the boat our driver Eduardo had sourced a café for us to have a snack lunch and they opened up especially. It was a definitely a place where locals only went so I played safe and had chips! From there we had about a hour drive up into the Chiapas Highlands to San Cristóbal de las Casas (altitude 2,100m) where we'll be staying two nights.