We are just spending our last night in San Cristobal. Before here we took a night bus to Pelenque, where we spent the day visiting the Mayan ruins, which were amazing! They are set in the jungle and are huge - around 50 buildings and temples. There was around 8,000 inhabitants - one of the biggest Mayan cities in Mexico. The architecture and the decorations were really impressive with the beautiful back-drop of the jungle and a really pretty waterfall nearby. We tired ourselves out climbing the many, huge, steep steps of the temples then visited the museum which was also fascinating; lots of beautiful, intact, artefacts - objects found in tombs, amazing art on stone tablets, jewelery, and sculptures. Learnt alot about Mayan traditions, beliefs and history. The next day we caught the bus, which seemed to climb forever up into the mountains of Chiapas, to the town of San Cristobal, which is a lovely town in a valley. Its really nice, but really chilly (not used to it any more so have caught an awful, nasty cold - ugh). Its a nice mixture of travellers and Mayan people, alot of whom all where there traditional gear and carry their kids around in a cloth tied around them. There is a lot of poverty though - lots of really cute little kiddies (some of them couldnt be older than 4!) out all hours of the night selling their hand-made crafts. Some of them are about 7 years old and carrying little babies around in the cloths on their backs, and dont seem to have any parents. Its really, really sad. Actually, the other night Nikki got mugged by some of them - for her chocolate bar!!! They must have been about 3 years old! They just snatched it out of her hand and all ran off screaming - it was hilarious! The whole time we've been here (and apparently it goes on for the whole of August) theres been some sort of religious festival going on, nobody seems to be quite sure what its all about but it involves a hell of a lot of bangers and fireworks going off night and day, a little fair and occasional bands and parades. On our first evening we went to a little local cafe for dinner and I tried a really strange dish, chicken covered in a sauce of chocolate and chillies, not bad but very weird. Then we went to a bar and bumped into some friends we'd made in Merida; an American girl, 2 English girls and a french bloke they'd picked up along the way - we had a crazy night! Danced and jumped around to a live band for hours on end - at one point I was even dancing on stage with a big, old Amerindian dude! V.funny night. We've been staying in a really cool (literally- brrr!), chilled-out, hippyish hostel with a really nice courtyard which even has a lime tree (great for putting in our Corona's!). Although there are far too many cats for my allergies - first night here one jumped out from underneath our bed! Its pretty busy too, we've even been sharing a single bed on the bottom of a bunk because there was no room. The dangerous thing is that the hostel is 5 mins away from a really nice market where they sell all kinds of lovely hand-made crafts, clothes, bags, and jewelery. We have bought waaay too much stuff! We even both got big woolly jumpers as we couldnt take the cold any more. We have been going there everyday! Today (after the market of course) we also climbed to the top of a hill to a church where there is a stunning view of the town, then we watched a film (the Da Vinci Code) in our TV room. Tonight we catch the 13hour bus ride to Mexico City.