Upon arrival to the city of Palenque from San Cristobal, approx. a 5 hour bus ride, we once again trusted our Lonely Planet travel book and headed for El Panchan, which is located just off the road near the entrance to the Palenque ruins. El Panchan houses a group of hotels some with cabanas, restaurants, bars and travel agencies in the middle of the jungle isolated from everything and everyone. It was quite the unique setting and a backpackers heaven. We made it to Margarita's and Ed's Hotel and Cabanas just in time to snatch the last room for the day. [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Day 33, Tuesday 26 June 2007 - Palenque and waterfalls Today was a long driving day, with a departure from San Cristobal at 6.30 on our only private bus for the trip. We had two stops along the way though, at some waterfalls. The first stop was after yet another crappy bus ride, as the roads around these parts are very winding. I have to admit, I haven´t seen nearly as much desert in the country as I have hills and green mountains! The first falls were breaktaking though. Azul Agua. Damned hot though and humid. I think the temps [View Full Entry]

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I’ve been really interested in seeing the ruins at Palenque for a long time now, abandoned by the Maya about 800AD and shrouded in deep jungle for centuries before being re-discovered at the beginning of the 1900’s. I think this is basically because of books like The Mayan Prophecies & Graham Hancock’s book ‘Fingerprints Of The Gods’ which give you the impression that these ancient folk had a lot more knowledge than we give them credit for. The most famous discovery here was in the 1940’s when King Pacal’s tomb was uncovered - which had an exquisitely [View Full Entry]

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I got off the bus and nearly fell over with total dizziness; the heat was back to intense ozone vacant levels. The roads are bendy and nauseating, especially if you sit in the isles seats, this time it was my turn NOT to have a window seat, curses! This journey felt like I was at Alton Towers on the same ride for a painful five-hour stretch after having devoured a massive Sunday lunch with cream based pudding for afters. We had researched online through tripadvisor.com a place to stay near the old ruins in Palenque, as we drove closer to the [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Hello! Wow this has been a hectic week! after our first days of trying to fit in the whole of mexico city, we then stayed one day and one night in the pretty mountain town of San Cristobal de las casas. the town has lots of recent history as it was a Zapatista controlled area for a while. the dispute between them and the government still isnt completely sorted but there´s no signs of anything remotely like that in the town. all the buildings are brightly painted, and the mexicans there continued to be very friendly, helpful, and generally jus good [View Full Entry]

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Puerto Escondido. Yeeeeeeeeeha!! Da beach!! B-) Finally, after a torturous 6hr 2nd class trip from Oaxaca City to PE I got here, the bus took us through 2000m mountains and sort of jungle at lightening speed on those switchback roads that made even *me* feel motion sick at times, and that never happens! As Yoporai would say "Necessito vomitaria"! (sp?) But once I got here, woah! It's beautiful. My two Dulwich friends had left me a little note at reception so I met them at an idylic beach cove surrounded my palm trees and little tiki huts. Muay bueno! The [View Full Entry]

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Coucou, La connection et les ordis, ici a Zipolite, etant tres lents, je vous envoies petit a petit les photos des jours precedents… I’ll tell you the few anecdotes that go with each place too... So in Palenque, in the middle of some Jungle, I stayed in a small traveler’s village: El Panchan. From there I did some horse riding, visited the local ruins and went to some waterfalls... I stayed in a little Cabaña. In the morning I woke up with the strangest animal sound I have ever heard: it was very close and going around my little hut and [View Full Entry]

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Our bus left Puerto Escondido at about 2.30pm and from there it was a 5 hour ride to Salina Cruz where we then had a two hour wait before catching another bus to Villahamosa, which took a further 8 hours, and then finally a 2 hour trip to Palenque town, arriving about 8am the following morning. Palenque Town isn´t too amazing so we stayed about 5km down the road towards the ruins in a place called Margarita and Ed´s, which is set in the jungle. Margarita and Ed´s was pretty alright. We had a little cabana with bathroom, hot water, [View Full Entry]

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