The Mexican adventure finished with two very different locations. The jungle of Palenque and the white sandy beaches of can cun. In Palenque the hostel was a beautiful little resort looking place set in amongst the "jungle" with a restaurant/bar up on the second level surrounded by trees and various other greenery. The weather was like Escondido hot and stick but with passing showers was a little more bearable. The food at the hostel was amazing and didnt break budget. For what we they were serving you would be paying 3 or 4 times as much in a classy australian restaurant.
After an early night it was off to see some spectacular ruins and two different waterfalls where we could swim. The ruins were awesome. Very different from those in Mexico City as they were set deep(ish) in the jungle and were closer to something seen in Indiana Jones. So close in fact that we had a little bit of an Indiana Jones moment.. Exploring one set of ruins we entered the ancient building through a little passage way that lead to a pitch black room. With no touch immediately available I thought it would be cool to just take flash photos and get flashes of what lay beyond the darkness as we slowly crept into the dark room. Flash... some pretty tomb-like looking piles of stones in a small room.. Flash.. more of the same.. Flash... okay, I think we had seen it all now. Then Brad finally found his touch and with Dave and I deep within the "chamber" by now he said "Oh shit, look up there on the wall!" to we responded with a "ha ha good on...BATTTSSS!!!! and we bolted out of the little room dodging swooping bats overhead.
We entered each of the following ruins with a little more care but found a few more bat dwellings.
The waterfalls were pretty cool one of them complete with a lifeguard and the other with a swinging rope into the river. It was a fun day. When we got back we went down to the bus station to book the overnight to can cun only to find that they had one seat on three different buses as opposed to the preferred and obviously more convenient three seats on the one bus. So we all bought tickets for different buses and hoped that they all ended up in a similar place. I had the first leaving one so rushed back to get another great meal from the hostel before returning the the bus stop to get on the bus. The heavy rain had caused delays and to cut a long story short I left 45 minutes after the other two who's buses were schedules for 30 and 60 minutes after mine. After another interesting overnight trip we all ended up in the same place and found a hotel to spend the night in can cun.
The next day we were able to check into the Hyatt with pretty spectacular views of the beach and was in great proximity to the main strip.
Hotel gym workout
3 x Max Dead Hang Pullup
17, 10, 8
20 min Amrap
10 50# Hang Squat Clean Thruster
20 Situps
30 Double Unders
Result - 6 Rounds
20 OHS @ weighted bar
20 Squat Snatch @ weighted bar
That night we went out to a beach party connected to one of the clubs and it was a pretty big night with $40 entry once you were in it was open bar so I was feeling pretty average in the morning.
The boys were off that afternoon and without getting all "Paul" (English guy who was with us for a day or two and told us he loved how it was "just easy" to hang out with us) about it we said our farewells but it was definitely sad to see them off.
That night I had a good night of recovery, watched a few movies and chilled out. The following day I took it very easy. Buffet brunch, Beach, Pool, Workout*, Beach Volleyball.
*
Building:
3 x Max Pushups in 1 minute - 41, 31, 27
Work Capacity:
5 Rounds
4 HSPU
6 Dead Hang Pullup
8 DB Swings 50#
10 Burpees
11:19
Sprints:
10 x 50m Sand Sprint
7 Sprints + 3 shuttles as hamstring seized up a little on the 7th sprint. Sign of conditioning starting to regress.
That night it was out again on the can cun strip with a couple of girls from Sydney that I had met at the hotel. It was another cover charge (which I bargined for this time) and open bar job but nowhere near as big or late. Which I was thankful for because of my flight out to New York the next day.
Buffet. Check out. Taxi to airport. New York.
Arrived at Newark airport New Jersey and caught a bus across to Grand Central where I caught a train to Brooklyn where I was staying. Little did I know Brooklyn is pretty large and being in Brooklyn doesn't necessarily mean your'e in walking distance to the apartment your'e staying at in Brooklyn. After a further 2 hours of playing around with the subway, feeling very out of place due to a certain aesthetic characteristic and turning down many the offer of marijuana I finally hopped in a cab and got to my destination. After not enough sleep the night before I was informed that we were heading out in Manhattan. Even in my half asleep state it was hard to notice the picturesque neighbourhoods and breath taking skyline of Manhattan. It was hard to believe that I was actually in a city I'd dreamt about going to for so long.
Today after a good long sleep we went down to a place called 5 points. Which is a big factory taking up nearly a whole block where the entire thing is a legal graffiti wall. Great idea and some nice pieces.
Looking forward to my week in New York. One more night in Brooklyn, then off to Times Square to a hostel and a couple of days of being a tourist and hopefully doing some good things for my body which is feeling pretty average after 20 days in Mexico.
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