Palenque was my favourite of the ruins, partly because of its’ jungle setting and size and partly because there were less people about, which I find detracts from the mystery of a place such as this.
It’s hard to get caught up in it all and lose yourself to imagination amongst the awe inspiring spectacles when troops of camera toting tourists (such as myself) spoil the view and break the spell of disbelief. So, I consider myself fortunate on this occasion that the space was just that – spacious – and I could marvel in deliberate daydream relatively uninterrupted.

It is estimated that only 5% of this once great Mayan stronghold is uncovered, with the remaining 95% still claimed by dense jungle. The 5% is reasonably big however – a testament to the greatness of the Mayan empire at its’ peak – and takes a good half day to appreciate and go round it all.

It was also absurdly hot there.

This is a developing theme that has featured on previous posts. However this was the peak. I moved around Palenque quickly, jogging to spots free from people, swiftly climbing to all the high points and steep steps to the strategic positions of the various structures and buildings.

I can honestly say that I have never perspired so much.
Every pore glistened, beaded, dripped and ran.
Any attempt to wipe dry seemed to make more sweat follow, faster than before – so that was quickly abandoned. In humidity which felt close to 100%, when your fingertips, palms and shins are sweating, there is little you can do, other than go with it, melt and not try to think too hard.
Later on, I joined up with a group I knew from El Panchen and we tried to estimate the water lost that day..
We didn’t come up with an answer, figuring it to be several litres at least and took comfort in the fact that we were all in the same boat..
A boat adrift on a river of sweat.
Several cool drinks later, under the shade of an avocado tree, the group split into two – half getting a bus back to the lodge and half deciding to walk back. I favoured the walk, during which the heavens opened, drenching us from head to toe within seconds, the sweat replaced by fresh water from the sky.
No silver lining for this cloud and none was wanted..
Rare is it to be so happy in such heavy rain!

CLICK HERE FOR THE PALENQUE RUINS PHOTO GALLERY!

As usual, click below for a few choice pics..

Stone carving of one of Palenque’s rulers

The sentiment remains the same – so best wishes for 2008 to everyone who reads this, especially family and friends.

2007 was host to an incredible and almost certainly unrepeatable experience for me.

2008 has been pretty good so far too..

However all good things must come to an end. Actually, I don’t really believe that, it’s a silly cliche that is only (nearly) always true if you have an infinite amount of time to play with. For example, the fact that 1+1=2 is a good thing in my mind and that’s not going to end any time soon. I seem to have strayed off track a little there. The point, if there ever was one, was that my travels are entering the final phase now, so soon Britain will once again be where the bed that my head rests is.

My laptop is working again now, so updates should be gracing these pages shortly, hopefully in a more rapid and regular manner. Internet connection permitting and me not being in the middle of nowhere, of course.

Now where was I.. Ah yes, on my way to the ruins at Palenque!

Click below to read the rest..

A stop off of a few hours in Merida was required before the bus to Palenque. Not through choice or any desire to be there, that was the route to take and when the connecting bus was leaving.

Not much of consequence happened during the wait – just not long enough to do anything much and too short to sit patiently.
I left my main bag with a nearby storekeeper and went for a walk around the area which, keeping in line with the immediate surroundings of most bus stations around the world, wasn’t a hub of culture but rather a bustle of people of all flavours amidst a run down neighbourhood. I stop at a cafe for a snack to stock up before my journey and eat the spiciest chicken broth known to man, a side of tortillas and a particularly piquante salsa verde, or green chilli sauce.
The whole of my my face was dripping with sweat by the time I was finished with the cheap and tasty stock. My nose and even my eyes, it seemed, were not exempt from joining the excess of perspiration that was rapidly beading then rolling down my face and neck.
I futilely tried to wipe myself down, mopping my brow, face and neck, then went to the bathroom for a wash to freshen up.
Moving outside again in hope of a cooling breeze, I chat to an unhappy young man sitting on a suitcase who had obviously recently been in a fight, his face and knuckles bruised and bloody. Without going into to much detail, the fight had been caused by domestic troubles and he was forced to leave his home and move on, though he did not yet know where. He wanted to get drunk whilst he decided where to go and wanted me to join him. Ignoring his plight, I politely declined, semi truthfully explaing that I had a few things to do before my bus, wishing him luck as I left him sitting there nursing his wounds, no doubt thinking about the bombshell to his life.

In my experience, the hotter the region, the colder the bus through it.
I first learned this through horribly underdressing one bus in Brazil and subsequently shivered for 6 hours before slamming back into the outside heatwave. Since then, I have taken the appropriate precautions – spare jacket or jumper in the carry on bag, with a sarong or something similar as a cover for the legs.

This part of Mexico is particularly hot and sticky, so I prepared for an icy bus ride, pulling on my hoodie and trousers and throwing a Brazilian flag over me as I settled for sleep.
Exhausted, I fell asleep before the engine of the bus rattled and coughed into life, eyes flicking open as it did. Drawing closed just as quickly as they had opened, I spiralled back into sleep as we pulled away from the station.
A few short hours passed before I woke abruptly, gasping, drenched and throat parched.
It was roasting.
I had roasted!
It turned out that the air conditioning unit had given up the ghost half an hour into the journey and I was completely overdressed for this unexpected heat. I yanked off my jumper, rushed into a pair of shorts, guzzled some warm water and thought of icy, cloth cutting Patagonian winds as I tried to get back to sleep. This was regularly interrupted by my seat neighbour who, being a large gentleman, fared worse in this heat than a slimmer framed man. He tossed and turned laboriously in half slumber, occasionally flinging a desparate arm out, knocking me awake. Repaying the favour, I knudged him awake and feigned sleep  – this pointless charade continuing until he disembarked an hour before arrival at Palenque the following morning.
From the town of Palenque, I jumped on a minibus heading towards the ruins and got off at El Panchan, a few kilometres from the old Mayan township.

El Panchan is an unusual collection of lodges set in the jungle, inhabitated by travellers, new age types, researchers and academics of varying disciplines, usually with a Mayan slant. It has a unique feel to it and much knowledge could be gleaned by talking to the residents, as well as no shortage of company for the evenings.
I find a suitable shack to sleep in, drop my bags off and book transport for the cool waters of the nearby Misol Ha and Aqua Azul waterfalls for midday.
With three hours to kill, I take a much needed and equally enjoyed cold shower and potter around the complex.

Some nature shots from Panchan:

The trip was worthwhile, but nowhere near as spectacular as the raw power and collosus of Iguassu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil, which set an unfairly high bar for all natural water features that followed.
Both the areas were pleasantly picturesque and swimming in both the waters was refreshing. Agua Azul (meaning ‘blue water’) required a little more care due to strong currents and eddies – swimming was localised to a small area and was more of a dip rather than a proper swim, unless you wanted the trip back to the bottom to be one spent helplessly crashing over the numerous falls, carried by the whims of the whirling waters, dashing the rocks on the way down. Preferring the slower and safer recommended walking back option I kept close to the bank, pushing against the current’s will to pull me to the back and centre of this level, where another flow joined it before surging forward and down over to the next level.
In the dry season, the waters are brilliantly blue with a turquoise tint (due to limsestone in the mountains), as the name might suggest, lending to a much more impressive sight. Agua Marron, or brown water, would have been a more apt title in the wet season as the rain waters run down from the lands, joining ranks with the river, swelling it and turning the whole thing a murky brown in the process.

Waterfall at Misol Ha:

Dangerously funny sign at Agua Azul:

SEE THE REST OF THE GALLERY HERE!

The bus arrived back to El Panchan in the early evening, where I had a particularly good meal with new friends, an interesting chat with a leading Mayan historian, got confused over the Mayan calender and watched an impressive fireshow whilst toe tapping to the band.
After the meal and a few drinks, a group of us head down the road to party with the band at a campsite 500 metres down the pitch black road towards the ruins. A road much easier taken going somewhere than coming back..

CHICHEN ITZA PICS HERE!

CENOTES PHOTO GALLERY RIGHT HERE!

Click below those wanting words furnished with a few pics..

Back to the story..

So now the date is early September and I’m fast curving west and north through southern Mexico from Cancun on a turbo tour up towards Mexico City.

Day One – Vallavolid:

After a few restless hours sleep in a hot, musty box room, I arise early to get the first bus to Chichen Itza, the magnificent Mayan ruins and one of the most well known, imagining the ancient city in it’s prime, blue and red stucco vibrant and powerful – impossibly different to our world today.

Despite thrashing downpours in the rainy season, the terrain in the Yucutan peninsula doesn’t hold much water. Cenotes, or underground sinkholes, were the only year round source of water throughout much of the land, as well as being a place for sacrifice.
There are two cenotes at the site.
Chitchen Itza is built around these and how the city derives it’s name – ‘Chi’ means ‘mouth’, ‘Chen’ means ‘well’ and ‘Itza’ is the name of the tribe that lived there.

‘Chichen Itza’ – the people at the mouth of the wells.

And what a city they must have lived in..

When the Spanish first came to the New World, they did not conquer savages, as they presumed them, but great and proud empires on a cultural level to rival that of their conqueurors. These indios or Aztecs, Mexica, Mayas, Toltecs, Zapotecs etc had art, writing and books. Perhaps most impressively, they had engineering skills that allowed them to move blocks of stones larger than houses over mountains. They had a more accurate astronomy, and more mathmatically precise calender. The roads were safer and more durable than the foul ruts running through many of the current locales, and their buildings more solid.
In other words, we annihilated civilizations of cultured intelligent peoples.

The above passage is a paraphrased fictional speech taken from a book I was reading.. They are the words of a priest, Father Hidalgo, the man who initiated and led the revolution of indendence to free Mexico from it’s tight Spanish grip.

El Castillo, the grand centerpiece:

Serpents at the base of El Castillo, still hunger for human flesh:

The current inhabitants of Chichen Itza:

Inspiration for Andy Warhol?

Arriving back just after midday, I wolf down a street snack ant taco and attempt to rehydrate whilst scouting around for a bike hire shop. My bus to the next port of call, a day’s travel by bus, was leaving that afternoon so the luxury of time was not with me.

Hiring a bike without brakes turned out not to be the disaster it could have been thanks to relatively flat roads and a lack of traffic. I made it to some cenotes that I wanted to visit in good time.

These dark sinkholes set in limestone formations were possibly caused a meteor striking the Yucatan a long time ago.

Stunningly still and beautiful, they are a little unnerving when swimming alone in them, the dark water lit in the middle by a shard of light, turning the water a bright turquoise where it strikes. Tree roots hang all the way down from the hole high up to drink from the cool water below. Bats and birds to and fro amongst the stalactites that hang low from the limestone roof.

I swim amongst the blind black catfish and take in the refreshing cool, a sharp contrast to the blazing heat outside.

Making equally good time back from the cenotes, I wake the owner from a siesta and return his bike. The downside to making such good time was that I was dripping sweat and completely unable to cool down in the afternoon sun..

Sitting roadside, I sink another drink, thinking about how best to cool off. People stop on their way past to talk to me.

I ask one middle aged lady where it’s possible to shower in this town and end up asking if it would be possible to use hers for a few pesos.

She kindly obliges in return for me carrying her shopping home.

The shower was bliss. Cold, powerful and cold.

I was just drying off in somewhat of a post cool down daze when the door swings open and a large framed, heavily moustachioed man strode in, clearly not expecting me there. His shouts in Spanish confirmed this, as did the surprised look on his face which turned to confused anger with incredible speed.

In no doubt shoddy Spanish on my part I think I managed to explain the situation reasonably well. The man turned and left, nearly as briskly as he came in.

A good a time as any to get dressed quickly and leave, I thought and hurried my clothes back on.

The man burst back in as I was pulling my shorts up but his face burst into a broad smile. He insisted that we go and drink. I tried to politely decline, saying that my bus was leaving shortly and it was very important that I get on it. It was the truth but traditional Mexican men such as this one can be very insistent when matters such as pride or being macho are concerned.

One beer was agreed upon which after finsihing was followed up with the insistence of a second, despite my best efforts otherwise.

I managed to pull off the reverse macho move with a cry of “Viva Mexico!” and suggestion of a farewell tequila. This was heartily accepted with a banging of chest and three more farewell tequilas, followed by my tipsy escape to the bus station.

A short wait and a sandwich later, it was time for my bus to Merida, from where I would have an hour or two wait before a connecting bus to Palenque, another great Mayan city, this time set against a jungle backdrop, the humidity rising..

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