Day 34 - Palenque and ruins

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Day 34, Wednesday 27 June 2007 - Palenque and the ruins

We spent the morning at the site of the Mayan ruins in Palenque, which were amazing and considered by I think everyone in the group to be the best so far. Would have been better if it hadn´t been at least 35 degrees, stinking hot and humid, but still, they were fantastic.

The site is believed to have been built mainly between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, although artefacts have been found that date back to 300 BC. Strangely though, the city was abandoned and reclaimed by the jungle. Our guide told us that it could be because the Mayans had pretty much used up all of the natural resources in the area and so moved on. Over the years, the jungle simply grew back. I don´t think it would have looked nearly as good without the jungle and certainly would have been hotter!

Only about 2% of the buildings have actually been unearthed again, the others are still covered by jungle, which is cool. The area is huge and we covered such a small part of it, but it was still so impressive.

We exlored the Palace in some detail and also climbed up to the top of the temple of the skull, a warriors burial place. There is also a pyramid to the king and queen. We also climed to the top of another pyramid, built behind the palace, which gave a fantastic view of the grounds and the views around the area.

Back to the hotel for a late-ish lunch and pretty much just layed around the pool all afternoon, playing uno!

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Photos

View of Palace
the climb to the top was hard, but the view was worth it!

Group
at the ruins, in front of the building that the king was buried in

Me at the ruins
on top of the palace building

Stairs
more stairs that I climbed. I´ve climbed more stairs in this country than in my whole life!

Temple
that had the great view and the terrible stairs!

A local...
who lounged pool side with us for a while in the arvo!