Blogs from Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, North America - page 8

does anyone know what the road is like bewteen san cristobal de las casas and palenque and can you drive there direct by hire car? how long does it take? also like to drop in on agua azul on the way if poss. any advice gratefully accepted ... read more

Up again at 5:30 for a day-long drive to Palenque. We stop at Villa Hermosa's La Venta Park, which is where you can see giant Olmec heads carved from stone. The Olmec were the predecessors of the Maya and Aztec. This is the first time that we needed mosquito repellent - but they didn´t warn us before getting off the bus, and once in the park, we couldn't go back to the bus. Many of us got eaten, but no worse than Regina in the summer. There is also a small zoo there. The neatest thing were the Cotimundi that were roaming around free, and came around our tour group. They look like a big cat, but with anteater - type snouts, and made snorting sounds like my dog. Wild spider monkeys in the trees offered ... read more

Tim Version: * Saw the waterfalls of Misol-Ha, and swam and lay around beautiful Agua Azul. * Visited the incredible ruins of Palenque, loving the jungle setting and angry sounding howler monkeys. The ancient temple filled version: The night bus to Palenque didn't play any movies and didn't let me get any sleep due to a driver with an itchy trigger finger for the bus lights (he would turn on all the lights in the bus so he could read his watch kinda stuff), constant stops, and some like the guy next to me snoring chronically! Palenque is the name of both the town and the ruins, as is often the case. The town Palenque was just waking up when I arrived and I got perfect cheap steaming hot Tomales and Arroz con Leche, such a ... read more

Tired? Nar, way past that! We left Mex city in the arvy a little hungover on the first day of the year! A 14 hr overnite bus, with no real sleep then we arrive in P @ 6 in the morn and got a cheap hostel (5 bucks). It would have been sooo nice to sleep but no rest for the wicked! We went to P for the runinas and all the tours went in the morn. We investigated doing a tour but they were all day tours, so being independant travelers we opted to do it on our own. We got a colectivo out to the ruinas, had a look for a while (really cool ruins in the jungle). Then after it was hot as and there are some cool h2o falls in the area. ... read more

The trip begins in two weeks (as long as my passport arrives on time). We will fly from Birmingham to Houston, and then from Houston to Villahermosa Mexico, which is just north of Palenque, in the state of Chiapas Mexico. We will be visiting several Mayan ruins in Mexico and then crossing over into Guatemala to visit two sites there. For the entire trip, we will be in the border regions, between Mexico and Guatemala. This region is popular among the Zapatistas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatistas). Dont worry Mom, they dont use their guns anymore, since the Mexico army showed them who is boss. There will be military checkpoints along the way, but all of the travel sites state that it makes the area safer. I am going with Pete Van Zandt, a biology professor at BSC and 11 ... read more