Mayan Ruins of Palenque

  Palenque, Mexico
Sunday, June 10, 2007

It's a five hour trip on winding mountain roads to Palenque.  The trip was not a pleasant one for several reasons.  First, I was feeling a little queasy due to a night on the town on the previous night.  This did not combine well with the the afore mentioned winding roads.  Secondly, it only took two hours for the kid two row in front to throw up.  As with the rest of Central America, nobody bothered to clean the mess up.  Thus, we were subjected to a cocktail of smells from the mess a few rows in front and the toilet three rows behind.  The kid and his mum were ok - they just moved to some different seats on another part of the bus.  Why didn't I think of that?

The town of Palenque isn't up to much so I jumped on a colectivo to El Panchan.  A small backpacker type village just outside the entrance to the national park.  I stayed here for the night and headed out to the ruins the next day.

Palenque is a Mayan archaeological site.  It's similar to Tikal in that it combines unbearable heat with lots of steps to climb.  If you need a more detailed explanation then check out this link - They can explain things much better than me.  And it saves me from loads of typing which is a bonus for me too.  Check out the photos too.

In the afternoon I jumped on the afternoon bus back to San Cristobal which I can thankfully say was a much better trip than the one here.