Palenque

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Some people classify Mexico as a developing country, while many other people place Mexico in the developed or at least almost developed nation category. Mexico is a huge country with such a variance and a disparity among its people. If you spend time here in Puebla, Cholula, Mexico City, or Oaxaca, even San Cristobal in Chiapas, you will find some money, upscale shopping, modern buildings, and area that could very easily pass for part of the United States, but 4 hours later you could visit a small indigenous village and then you know you are in a different world. For a second you may feel out of place, like in San Juan de Chamula, where you are surrounded by begging Mayan children, women, and men, or you could feel quite comfortable and at home in for example the village of Lacanjá. A ten-hour bus ride later and you could hit up the beaches and resort towns. Here you will probably find that more people speak English than Spanish and if it wasn’t for the fact that the sign in the airport read “Bienvenidos a Cancun” you may even believe you are on a Caribbean island. Then there are areas of Mexico that you would never even venture into, at least in a time like this, where the drug wars are spinning out of control. So where do you place Mexico and how do you explain it to people?

Here is my piece of mind for all of those of you that have fear of Mexico. A week ago I did it all. I traveled by bus, by car, by taxi, by tres tonelada (passenger-carrying trucks), by camioneta (pickup trucks), by camion (small vans), and by hitchhiking. I slept in hotels, in hostels, in posadas (small family owned hotels), in tents, in hammocks, and on the ground. Guess what? Still here and honestly felt safer doing all of this than I do in Newark, DE and some parts of Florida.

Before we move into the actual spring break, I am going to introduce to the cast. There is Emily, Ted, Mark, Tony, Libby, Veronika, and Nick. Emily will always be in shorts and a tank and running, Ted will always be Ted, Mark will always be the voice of reason and he will always be sweating, Tony will always be taking pictures with fourteen-year-old Mexican girls, Libby will always be representing Canada, Veronika will always be being dragged around, and Nick will always be changing plans and trying to run away from the group. I could probably title this vacation something resembling The Hills or The City based on some of the drama that occurred, but I will try to spare everyone as much as possible.

Almost two weeks ago on Thursday, I boarded an ADO GL bus and began my spring break adventure. We took a 10-hour ride from Puebla to Palenque in Chiapas. Not too much happened on that bus; we just slept while dubbed over versions of a Tim Allen movie and a Hilary Duff movie played overhead. When we woke up we were in the town of Palenque and within three minutes we were off the bus and on a camion to El Panchán. If I had sneezed I would have missed the ride. Just imagine eight college kids running around the streets of a Mexican town, lugging huge backpacks full of tents, clothes, and food trying to wave down a van. Now do not be confused because there is a town called Palenque, ruins called Palenque, and a park called Palenque. The tour buses stop in the town, which you need not spend more than 10 minutes catching a bus or getting some bread. Next, our van stopped right outside the main gates to the Palenque Park. We followed some signs to some different cabanas. El Panchán is definitely a traveler’s hangout and full of backpackers from all over the world. It is essentially a dirt road with cabanas and small restaurants strewn all along it and a great place to stay if you are travelling minimally. We stayed at Jungle Palace. We found a cabana for five (three people stayed in a tent) and it was just a basic wood box with ripped screens filled with toilet paper. It did have a connected bathroom where we later washed all of our clothing. It certainly was not luxury, but considering the budget that was decided for the trip, it more than served its purpose.

After we got set up in El Panchán, we grabbed our cameras and headed out for Palenque, the ruins. We had to pay some 20 pesos to enter the park and then you can then take a ten-peso camion ride to the ruins; however, being that we were on a tight budget, we decided to walk. It is actually a pretty nice walk and took us about thirty minutes. Of course by the time we actually got to Palenque most of the group was drenched in sweat, but not me because I am accustomed to the humidity. While everyone else complained, I savored every second of the horrendous heat. Can you believe it, I was the only one that was not complaining. Anyways for this reason a lot of the pictures you will see will involve shirtless boys and girls in tanks and sports bras. It was actually funny because Mark from upstate New York was hating every second of the heat and when he would lean his head over, a constant stream of sweat would pour on to the ground and I, on the other hand, was barely breaking a sweat.

The whole time I was in Palenque I kept feeling like some warrior Mayan Indians were going to come running out of the surrounding jungle and forest and re-takeover the area. Unfortunately this never happened. Palenque is definitely breathtaking. I really enjoyed just wandering around and taking it all in instead of listening to Paola (our coordinator) explain every little detail of the place. We went on Friday, which worked out perfectly because Semana Santa started on Saturday. Semana Santa is a week of break for the entire country and it is the week before Easter Sunday. I was actually surprised at the scarcity of people in Palenque. By the way we got in free to the ruins because we are students here in Mexico, so we used our student IDs, note that U.S. student IDs do not work, just Mexican IDs. This definitely helped us stay on our budget. (That’s sarcastic, I am sure I will get into that when I talk about meals). We wandered around for a while in smaller groups, up and down the stairs, in and out of the buildings, taking pictures, and just all around having a great time. In our exploring I found a path that lead up to this small ruin set back away from the rest and continued on forever. Silly me decided to keep following this path beyond this ruin and the rest of the group unquestionably tagged along. This walk turned into a good hour, hour and half hike straight up this mountain to nowhere and we finally decided to terminate our hike when the trail started to head back down. It was pretty hot, by now I was sweating as much as the rest of the group, we were out of water, and some people had not eaten in 12 or more hours, but we pushed on for while in hopes that we would find a waterfall or a lookout where we could see all of the ruins. Finally after 45 minutes of climbing up the trail turned south and we figured we made it to the top and were headed down the backside of the mountain, which probably was not a good idea. After that little adventure some of us found this stream that ran by some of the ruins to cool off while others went and found some water. Note: In all of the ruins there is nowhere to buy water, be sure that you are well stocked. There are tons of people selling little knick-knacks and I am telling you they would have made bank if they were selling drinks in that climate.

After some recovery time, we climbed a couple more temples and then went to the waterfall. After our all of our climbing and hiking we figured out that were was a waterfall just a few minutes walk downhill. We hired a guide to take us through some of the ruins that have yet to be uncovered, to a George of the Jungle swinging branch (which we all tried), to see some monkeys, and finally to the waterfall. Some of us just put our feet in the water to cool off, while others stripped down to sport bras and boxers and jumped in. Tony and Ted were swimming in their boxers when they were solicited as models. A bunch of fourteen-year-old girls were coming up to them and asking to take pictures with them. Really what happened was two girls went up to them and just wanted a picture with Tony, which made Ted feel left out, so eventually a couple of girls asked for pictures with Ted too. So for about 20 minutes there was a full on shoot with Ted and Tony and different girls.

After the fun in the waterfall we headed back to camp. Tony, Mark, Libby, and I went into Palenque to get some food; we had not eaten since we left Puebla. In an effort to keep everyone on budget (I hope you all are catching my sarcastic tone now), we were allowed some bread from a delicious bread store, some jelly, and water. There was no peanut butter at this supermarket, so we lived on this for 2 days. When we got back to camp, Emily went for a run and Tony, Mark, Libby, and I went to this little bar for beers, well the boys had their beers and Libby and I just kept them company. Before we went to bed we met with Ted, Veronika, and Nick to make the plans for the next day. Side note: we went down without making any plans or reservations and we just moved from one place to the next as we pleased. So after the plans were set, we talked Nick into letting us sleep until 7:30, we all went to sleep; it had been a long 24 hours. So you would think this would be the end of the night and we would meet again in the morning at 8 a.m. however, at 9:30 that night we are rudely awaken by the rest of our group again. Guess what? They changed our plans. We had been sleeping for an hour and I was in a very nice deep sleep when there was all of a sudden all this yelling going on in the cabin. Apparently, Ted, Emily, Nick, and Veronika had been talking to some guy at their camp, who was evidently very nice and helpful. He said he would watch our stuff during the day and help us find a cheaper ride for the next day. Again we were watching the budget. Even in my half awake state I could do the math in my head and figure out that this was not going to end up being cheaper or work smoother, but I did not have the energy to lift my head or talk at this point. They changed the time to 6:30 meeting at their camp (an 8-minute walk into the park and away from the town, keep this in mind for the next days entry), which meant we now had to get up at 5:45. I am sure you can all imagine how thrilled I was.

Anyways, stayed tuned for the second day of my adventure. This may take awhile if this was just one day.

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Photos

Meet The Group
Left to Right, Me, Emily. Veronika, Nick, Ted, Tony, Libby, Mark

Ruins
These were the first ruins we came across

Meet The Group
Left to Right, Me, Emily. Veronika, Nick, Ted, Tony, Libby, Mark

Ruins
These were the first ruins we came across

Comments

[Mom]

just kidding
you are killing me - day ONE. you are going to forget the trip by the time you get it all down. great pictures, i love seeing who everyone is.