Ancient Mayan Cities, Monkeys and Waterfalls!

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Palenque

When we felt we had recovered sufficiently, we set off for Palenque, a town within the jungle of Chiapas, that while pretty nondescript as a town, has some pretty amazing sights in its vicinity.

We stayed at a place called El Panchan, which is about 4km out of town. It is a slightly chaotic melee of cabins set in reforested jungle (that was farmland not long ago), with a stream winding its way through the site, and a couple of outdoor restaurant/bars. There is also apparently a Mayan steam bath here, but we didn´t go looking for this, or see it. The cabins ranged from four wooden walls and a roof, to fairly nice mini-homes with en-suite bathrooms. Ours was somewhere in the middle. It didn´t have physical windows to block the window shape holes, just mosquito screens. This made for fascinating nights listening to the sounds of the jungle, and less fascinating nights listening to our neighbours in all their activities. The best thing about this place was the howler monkeys. Although we didnt see any, after dark they make an absolutely incredible noise. It sounds like there are huge bears very close by, roaring in anticipation of eating you. And they continue like this, communicating with each other, for a long time.

The main attraction, just a few kms down the road was the ancient Mayan city. This city state was at its peak in the 7th century, but declined for unknown reasons and was absorbed by the jungle long before Spaniards arrived. It was absolutely spectacular to the see the huge temples and buildings set around the site - many more buildings are still thought to be hidden away in the jungle - in dense jungle surrounds. We went first thing in the morning, and there were not a huge amount of people there, which made it all the better.

Rather than go into too much detail here, ill put this link to the Wikipedia site which explains a lot more about it. And of course you can see our pictures!

Palenque Wikipedia Site

That afternoon we crammed into an overstuffed minibus driven by a lunatic who had aspirations of being Ayrton Senna, and set off for Aguas Azul and Misol Ha.

first came Misol Ha, an impressive waterfall that drops a considerable amount of water from a considerable height into a decent size pool (which we of course had a swim in, despite there being 100 tourists climbing all over each other to obtain pictures without anyone in the foreground).

Next up, Aguas Azul, a small ejido (village) where, as with Misol Ha, you pay an entrance fee at the gate that goes towards the indigenous community that owns/administers the land. Here we walked upstream along the banks of the river passing cascades, waterfalls, and various naturally formed pools in the startlingly blue water. We found a nice spot devoid of two many other people, that also benefited from a rope swing over the water, and had fun swinging into the water and having another swim. We had three hours here so after dragging out the swim we sat and had a coffee and orange juice. Sarah´s orange juice had rather a lot of egg in it (cooked mind you, but who knows when), that didn´t do a lot for our bourgeoning dislike of eggs stemming from eating to many before we got ill.

The ride back consisted of our driver driving very erratically, unexplained stops and short disappearances of our driver and his buddy, children accosting some fellow passengers who got out at one point, and our amusement being provided by a young lad sat in front of us who kept falling asleep and resting his head on the older guy to his left.

That night we sat in the open air restaurant drinking our drinks very slowly and enjoying the sounds of the band that were playing and the monkeys in the trees. Next up, Comitan, which involved a return bus journey to San Cristobal de las Casas.

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Photos

Misol Ha
We swam here, but not directly under the waterfall!

Aguas Azul
View of one of the waterfalls

Aguas Azul
Looking downstream

Aguas Azul
the rope swing!

Comments

[Jean Gosling]

LOOKING FORARD TO THE NEXT BLOG,IT ALL SOUNDS GREAT, APART FROM THE MONKEYS NOISE AND THE OTHER "NIGHT NOISES" ,DID YOU GET ANY SLEEP??????

[AnnaAdventuring]

Wow - looks like you had the perfect time to visit Palenque. When I went there were so many tourists crawling everywhere and the heat was unbearable. Well that'll teach me to travel during semena santa and then give in to the temptaion of a lie in! Looks like you went at the perfect time of day.