Places once alive that were lost and now are found again

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Palenque...Bonampak...Yaxchillan... all hidden in the jungle, all were ¨lost¨ for a while and have since been rediscovered. Did the jungle want to give up its secrets? Did everyone really forget these places existed? How can the white man claim to have discovered these ruins if the local indigenous people always knew where they were?

Too philosphical? OK then, just read on to find out what we got up to in the area.

We took an overnight bus from Merida to Palenque, 9 or 10 hours of sleeping sitting up right. And we did pretty well for sleep, arriving in Palenque if not bright eyed at least ready for the day ahead.

We picked a ¨hostel¨ out near Palenque ruins rather in Palenque town, a place right in the jungle. This hostel is in a vague clearing with a few others, all sharing the same tourist facilities and restaurants. Our room, optimisitically called a cabaña, is in a block of four concrete and corrugated iron ensuite rooms. It is surrounded by the jungle though, trees, vines, shrubs, insects and all sorts of noises.

The ruins of Palenque were still a few km away, uphill, so we took a collectivo the rest of the way. From the site entrance, you come out right in the middle of the ruins, in front of the trademark ruin, the Palace. We ignored this one for now and made our way round some of the others first. Like at other Mayan sites, you can no longer climb over the buildings. We had to again be content with reading the descriptive sign and seeing as much as we could from ground level. Not much use when the sign talks about murals or carvings inside the top part of the building! But good on INAH for conserving and preserving these places for future generations. The rock is soft and is already very worn.

Given that we had all day here if we wanted, for the first time all we needed to worry about was closing time not when our bus left, we took time to explore the little side paths and hidden corners. This resulted in us slipping and sliding up and down wet stone paths and into the jungle. Much more fun than just rushing around the main sets of ruins, seeing what all the other tour groups get to see.

One of the first temples had some burial chambers open for viewing. No bones or funerary offerings on display or anything like that, but one of the chamber did have a stone sarcophagus still inside, lid ajar. Then we headed off up this little path through the trees, and amongst the mossies we found this little temple holding on tight to the jungle. When we went inside and looked down into the basement / tomb, we found Colin something he´d been missing since NZ - a pair of sunnies. Someone must have looked down there and lost theirs, and not having a torch couldnt see and retrieve them. There is a benefit to carrying a headtorch when visiting places! They were a little muddy but will do the job nicely.

Much of the site was pretty crowded, with both tourists and locals selling artesania, crafts. Its a great place though, with a real mix of ruins. Some are no more than a pile of rocks put back together and looking nice and new, and some places look like they havent moved for hundreds of years. We had a good explore of the tunnels and toilets of the Palace, and the carvings and paintings. We sat there a while, suddenly free of other people, and tried to imagine the place as it was hundreds of year ago, whole, complete and full of people who were meant to be there. Didnt work! All I could picture were scenes like we see in museums, slightly tacky. Or like they´d come from ome Hollywood movie.

From the main group of ruins we wandered down towards a waterfall. We passed several sets of buildings there, meeting only the same few people as we all wandered our way down. All thee other ruins were slowly being reclaimed by the jungle, and none looked particularly like they´d been restored. It was great being there when they were quiet and empty. The waterfall was a lovely series of cascades, tumbling down over limescale encrusted rocks built up over the years, clear water showing a gorgeous blue in the pools. Made you want to jump in and soak, but it was moving fast and there were signs everywhere telling you not to go in.

The following day we headed even further into the jungle to visit two more sites - Bonampak and Yaxchillan.

Bonampak was about 3 hours drive from Palenque. A small but very interesting site, tucked away in the jungle. How much is still to be rediscovered? There was plenty of shapes in the trees that might have been temples and buildings, but we expect most has been explored and just not left cleared for public viewing. There was one main ¨building¨, or more like series of terraces with several rooms at various levels. One set of rooms had some awesome painting, murals showing scenes of life and war.

Yaxchillan was even further away, even more hidden in the jungle. It was a further hour or so drive, then 45 minutes by boat along the Rio Usumacinta, which forms the border between Mexico and Guatemala. The site is bigger than Bonampak, much more isolated, and very impressive. For some reason we ended up walking round the opposite way to everyone else, and so had most places to ourselves. And the howler monkey noisily voicing his opinion about something in the jungle nearby. We followed the trails from one set of ruins to the next, through the jungle, glimpses of the river and monkeys (spider and howler).

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Photos

Temple of the foliated cross
Something to do with representing corn apparently

Paintings, Bonampak
Amazing frescoes, Bonampak means ´painted walls´ in Yucatacan Mayan

Around Yaxchillan
The Small Acropolis

¨Building 33¨ what an inspiring name!
Its one of the main temples in Yaxchillan

Tunnels under one of the temples
They had some kind of curbs inside