Tess and Colin and the search of the hidden jade mask

Palenque is in the thick of the jungle. The Palenque ruins consist of about 4,000 buildings or something like that but there are less than 100 that you can visit because the rest are overgrown with jungle. The exploring is great out there. I feel like I´m in a Idiana Jones movie because the temples rise through the bush and there are vines draping down everywhere and it´s like I should be searching for buried treasure or an old relic. Today Colin and I went back to the ruins (we went the first time on Colin´s birthday, the 12th) and we took a hike through the jungle that was off on the side of the entrance where nobody else was. The trails wound around all over the place and some of the time we were hardly even on a trail, crossing streams, going through vines and trees and we were searching for the lost jade mask of the Mayans. After some searching we came across hidden ruins peering out from the green. We were on the trail of the mask and getting excited. We continued on, at times wondering where we would end up, and careful about the curse that was placed on the mask- many heads were sacrificed for its sanctity. I was almost paralyzed by a few giant spiders who caught me in their webs, but I gathered courage and kept going. Finally in the end the mask was right in front of our faces!! but behind a glass shield (in the museum, haha).

The Mayans had a very impressive civilization, and over 200,000 people lived in this city from around 200 AD to 700 AD. They had complex water and drainange systems and an unbelievably accurate calender. They were also into sacrificing a lot of people and animals to appease the gods. There was an upper class that got to do the sacrificing, and a lower class that was available to be sacrificed, along with war captives. It amazes me how all through history things are generally the same, but carried out in different settings. People are always trying to conquer other people for power and control and there seems to almost always be a segregation of classes. I look at the world today and wonder why it has to be like it is, with so much suffering and injustice, but then after visiting places like the Mayan civilization I wonder if it is just human nature. Maybe I´m too idealistic in my world views.

When we first went to the ruins Colin and I got a guide thinking we might learn some more information on what went down. Oscar offered to give us a free tour, I think he wanted to practice his English with us. He walked us along very slowly and we quickly found out he couldn´t really speak English, so the tour became a game where Oscar would tell me a bunch of facts in Spanish and then I would try and translate them to Colin in English and Oscar would listen to the English to learn words. And the whole communication process was pretty slow and somewhat painful. Colin and I realized after what seemed like an hour that we had only seen three temples, so we nicley thanked Oscar for his service and went off on our own. We realized something then: guides lead you to what you should see and tell you what they think you should know, but on your own you have so much more freedom and you can take control of your experience. It´s like being in school and being told what to learn and read, versus being out in the world and experiencing things for yourself. It´s so much better to do what you want at your own pace. That´s one of the best things about this trip-- there is no one to tell me what I have to do, I DO WHAT I WANT!!!!!! hahaha, but for real, it´s so freeing, and it helps me realize even more about myself and my interests and priorities.

Palenque seems to have a lot more tourists than anywhere we have been yet. It´s almost strange at first to walk around and see so many other gringos. There are lots of other backpackers here from all over the world coming to see the great ruins. Now we are on the ¨gringo trail¨and I think we will come across a lot more travelers here on out. We ran into a guy from Poland the other day walking down from the falls and he was telling us that it was his second year long trip through Latin America. The first time he bused it the whole way from Peru to Pategonia, and this time he was staring up in Mexico. We asked what he would do after Panama (in the infamous Darien Gap) on the way to Colombia, and he thought he might walk it! That really surprised me, but he was pretty confident about it and it might only take a week to trek across. He had some good things to say about Columbia and well pretty much everywhere. He got Colin and I more excited that we might be able to make it the whole way by bus.

There are many day trips you can take from out of the city to ruins and waterfalls, but everywhere is pretty crowed with tourists. They sort of get in the way, but Colin and I have found you just have to wander a little bit off the main track and you can usually find a peaceful place to yourself. One other thing I have noticed about pretty much everywhere we have been so far is that there will always be locals there trying to sell you whatever they can, whether its food, clothes, belts, crafts, jewelry, you name it. Often the women are loaded with cloths on their heads, bracelets and belts hanging from their arms, and bags full of other goodies strapped around their backs. It seems as though the range of the sellers goes from like 5 years old to 85 years old, and sometimes it is very hard to see. There are a lot of child laborers in Mexico. I am often conflicted in my heart about what to do, but one thing about our trip is that we are traveling really light, so I really don´t want to buy anything because then it is just more to carry. However when I do need something I try to make sure I´m supporting the locals who need it rather than the larger stores. Yesterday we had a great encounter with an old lady: Colin and I were having a pineapple picnic by some waterfalls and she came up to us begging that we buy some bananas from her. We told her we were full from so much pineapple but she kept begging. So we offered her some of our pineapple and she took it happily and went on her way. She didn´t get the 5 pesos she wanted but she did get something she could eat and not sell. Another lady came up to us the other night who was so cute I could hardly handle it. Colin and I were sitting down and we still towered over her. She couldn´t have even been 4 feet tall. Colin especially is a giant here. I wanted so much to help her, but there are lots of other people in her situation to, and I have not figured out the best way I can help, because I can´t just give money to everyone. I am currently thinking about ways I can help and make a difference. Thanks to Colin´s cousin Dierdra I have been handing some goodies to the kids. She gave me a bag full of nailpolish, toys, and jewelry that I could give to people along the way. Sometimes when I see kids working hard in the street or kids on the side of the street who look like they have maybe never been given a present, I hand them a treat, and the smile I get in return melts my soul, so thanks Dierdra from the kids! --side note (I started this blog yesterday and just this afternoon Colin and I ran into the really small lady again at the ruins and she had all of her crafts with her this time, so I got a hand woven belt to use as my camera strap. I had been thinking I wanted one and it was meant to be that I got it from her!!!)

One more crazy adventure before I end this blog... yesterday Colin and I went to the nice waterfalls (Agua Azul) about an hour bus ride up into the mountains from Palenque. The amount of water rushing down was pretty impressive-- it rains here all time, but fortunately Colin and I haven´t gotten caught in a storm yet. There is a trail that follows along side of the river and the falls go on for a ways. Colin and I went up and up and up until there weren´t many tourists left and there was just small settlements of houses and farms, full out country style. The kids were playing in the falls, some people were washing their clothes in the still sections, and others were just hanging out. The chickens, roosters, cats, and dogs were all hanging out as well. The environment was very peaceful and humble and I was enjoying myself a lot. Fairly high up from the start we crossed a crickety wooden bridge where the water beneath was bright turquoise blue. Then we were really getting up into the dense jungle. We could see high mountains covered in bush, rising above the fields, and Colin said, that is where we are going. A little further along we came across a distraction... there was a contraption hooked up to a zip line that crossed a wide part of the river and there was also a sign saying that there were more falls to see on the other side. Colin and I thought about trying it out for awhile, we even unhooked it, but then put it back turning down that adventure for the one up ahead. It was pretty sketchy because the zip line was a thick old wire that was fully rusted and the contraption was a huge seat that was also fully rusted and we weren´t too sure we would make it across, let alone back again. So we kept going. Then we ran into vigilancia (security) and he told us we had to turn back soon because the park area was closing. He also said there was a beach a little ways ahead and then the trail ended and there was just moutains covered in thick jungle. He told us not to go up there because it was very dangerous and there were a lot of snakes and other things, and it was the land of the Zapatistas. We said okay and asked about the zip line and he told us it would cut off your fingers if you tried to pull yourself across (I don´t know about that but I was kind of happy we didn´t try). So of course we kept going up anyway. We made it to the beach and had an orange and then Colin convinced me to hike up the mountain because he was itchin for a crazy jungle adventure. I followed along, but I was so scared at first. The bush was so thick, I thought anything could be a snake and it was going to come out and bite me. Colin assured me I would be okay, but he really wasn´t too reassuring. He hiked over slippery rocks, trees, caverns, plants and got to a place where we were high on some cliffs looking down on the falls below. The jungle got almost too dense to pass after a while and we decided we should probably turn around. I started feeling more comfortable, and Colin said we have many more jungle adventures to come so I should get used to it. It was a good adrenaline rush being up there and I´ll admit I´m excited for more to come. On the way back vigilancia asked us what we were doing, and we just said we had to take a look, and he was cool with it but worried about safety. Luckily it all worked out in the end, and we caught a bus back at the entrance before it was too late.

There is so much to write about and so little time. I have written enough for now, but man I keep thinking of other things I forgot... it will have to wait for some other time.

Hasta luego,
Tess

Oh yeah, I hope you enjoy the pictures!! I just figured out how to post them, and I can post them on previous blogs as well, so check it out!

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