Palenque of Time!

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Palenque! This is a place I have been really looking forward to getting to and it didn´t disappoint, I am in the JUNGLE and the largest ruin site in Central America!!! Woooooooo!!! I´ve never been to the jungle and I have never been so remote a place in my life, the only way in and out is 6hrs away by bus, nothing but green lush canopies of trees as far as the eyes can see. And it is HOT here. Today our guide said it was around 42degC in the sun!

We travelled from San Christobal to Palenque on the 1st class bus which took 6hrs during the daytime which was fine since the scenery was so beautiful coming down from so high into the flat lands and trees. We followed our LonelyPlanet guide and avoided the main Palenque (or Plenky as Kez calls it) town, instead hitting el Panchon which is 10 mins away set in the jungle nearer the vast ruins. It is a hokey, ramshackle collection of huts and cabins set in dense jungle inhabited by travellers and "bohemians" (damn bohemians, flauncing about in their tie-die sarongs and smell like cabbage they do!), it´s a great vibe! We sat out last night around a little candle lit table (since the electricity kept going On/Off across the site) under the local resturant canope, sweat trickling down our faces in the heavy humidity, suppin on a few Sol beers with lime dunked in them, it was so......Hemmingway!

We got up at 7am to get to the ruin site set in the Palenque National Park early, ahead of the tourists (we are "travellers"...so waaay different, ahem) and the heat of the day. The ruins were AWESOME. Breathtaking. We spent our ruminating over ruins with our guide, he showed us the Mayan background dating back to 900 AD, they built all the temples/buildings without the wheel, metal implements or animals like horses/bulls....knowing that makes them even more impressive. Our hostel hostess gave us a hot tip to a set of small waterfalls "off the beaten track" in the jungle so after lunch we went exploring! We found them! See pics.

Things that make you say WTF. In the only Mayan team game, played once a year the winning team gets the wonderous prize of...a beheading! The losers are shamed and cast out of the tribe. I´d be the vendor guy at the interval selling larks' tongues on toast, Otters' noses and Ocelot spleens....That´s the Life....
Hurray Cheap tequilla, honest conversations (the two go together I find.... 😉
Argh Being a sweaty, smelly traveller. ATMs.

Pics coming soon....

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