After a restless night running back and forth from the toilet we bit the bullet and took the boat tour of the lake and to the monkey island. The beatiful Lago de Catemaco (around which the last expanse of Gulf Coast rainforest is preserved) is hisorically known as the birthplace of Mexico’s first civilisation the Olmecs.

The Lake is also best known as the ‘Tierra de las Brujos’, The land of the witches and wizards.The boat seated 8 but we had it all to ourselves and sat at the head to enjoy the wind in our hair. We watched the birds dive around us and watch us pass from the trees as we skirted the edge of the lake. We saw men sat silently in their boats with nets trailing in the water below waiting for their dinner to swim into them.

We soon picked up speed and headed into the middle of the lake to Monkey Island where we saw Asian monkeys and Macaques who came to look at us as much as we were there to look at them. They came out of their hidey holes to get a closer look and ran out on the branches that hung over the lake and got as near to the boat as they could. The Macaques were a little scary looking and peered at us out of the bushes.

Further into the lake We were taken for a walk around a small lakeside village. The tour was only in Spanish but we picked up a few words. We were shown all of the Mayan artifacts, learned about the celebration of the full moon, visited a brujo (but felt we had been ill enough and were cured!) and the villages pet crocs. It was a lovely thing to do and even though we understood very little we understood the importance of the Olmecs and their beliefs to the young man who had shown us around.

Once we got back to dry land in Catemaco we hit the road yet again this time 180 miles to Villerhamosa.
We drove to the campsite which was of course closed down and ended up sleeping in the Walmart carpark. We barely slept with the coming and going of the trucks all night so started the day early and set off to La Venta Museum.

The Museum holds the most important Olmec artifacts from La Venta, the 4 Basalt heads. They are 4 huge heads carved into rock. There are hundreds of other Olmec sculptures all set in a park made to represent the jungle that they were found in. Monkeys, agoutis and coatis wander freely around the site and less friendly animals such as crocodiles and bats have their own areas.

These areas aren’t fenced as such just large living areas that I can only describe as pits…as in dug into the ground so you could see the animals from above. We wandered around for hours and our last stop was inside the bird and reptile house where the brids and reptimes wandered (or flew) around a huge dome freely. Alex got attacked by a large black turkey who really took a liking to him and we had a good chat with an enormous wise looking Parrot! It was a fab day out and a real change of pace for us.

Our next stop was Isla Aguada. We arrived on the little island (thankfully attached to the main Island by a loooong road across the water) and thankfully the campsite was still there! We parked up, met the dogs and went for a long walk on the amazing shell beach. We watched the fishermen along the shore sewing up their nets ready to go out in the wee hours of the morning and collected umpteen pristeen shells!Finally a day lacking in drama!

See what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!