Palenque is a small little town on the boundary of the Mexican highlands and the Gulf coast plains. In its tropical setting it has developed thanks to the popular Mayan ruins located just out of town but it remains a pretty small hub.
It was a sweltering hot and humid day when we arrived having boarded at 7:30am in the cool highlands and we were caught a little off guard at midday in our heavy clothes. As our reserved hostel was said to be only 500m away we thought we'd manage but unfortunately the only thing we managed was to lose ourselves in the fairly simple street layout and ended up walking about 2km! After that, we didn't do too much other than readjust to the warmer climate and laze about for the rest of the afternoon.
The Mayan site of Palenque is one of the best examples of Mayan architecture in Mexico. As with much of the Mayan archeology only a small portion of the total site has been excavated. Apparently Palenque stretches beyond the manicured lawns of the touristic site some 15 square kilometers into the surrounding jungle. We got there a little late having had to organise our following day trip before allowing ourselves the freedom to explore. This meant that by 10am it was already pretty warm and coach loads of tourists were disembarking from their AC atmosphere as we arrived. The ruins are truly beautiful with the grey limestone temples and pyramids forming an angular contrast against the dense green tangle of the jungle beyond (we would later discover that the ruins, which there are typically set in multiples of four at the cardinal points around a central plaza were once stuccoed and painted as follows: north - white; east - red; south - yellow; and west - black). We explored most of the site before finally settling under the shade of a huge tree next to our own Mayan temple a little out of the way and away from the continuous stream of human ants. There we lounged around for a while just enjoying our surroundings and Jane even managed a quick siesta while I wondered off taking photos.
That night we enjoyed a fantastic dinner of garlic prawns (from the caribbean side) at our newfound favourite restaurant before hitting the hay.
The following morning we boarded our bus at 6:00am for a bus/boat/bus ride across the boarder into Guatemala and towards the even more reputed ruins of Tikal.
Although long, the journey was pretty easy. The boat trip was an interesting break between buses and although the engine conked out half way up the river and it looked like we might drift into jagged rocks along the bank, the thirteen year old looking captain managed to get it started again in the nick of time.
We arrived in Flores a small island town joined to the Guatemalan mainland town of St Elena by a single road. Flores was one of the last prosperous Mayan cities but was completely flattened out of spite when the Spaniards, after many failed attempts, finally conquered the town. Now it was another one of the pretty little towns that flourish due to tourism with a colourful array of simple buildings. Our hostel - Los Amigos - was a nice place with an indoor/outdoor vibe and many jungle trees growing within the courtyard between hammocks and table settings.
We met a few nice people but didn't hang out too late as we had ANOTHER early morning planned (wasn't this meant to be a holiday???!!!)
We set off at 4:30am for the one hour journey to the Mayan ruins of Tikal. Following the usual organizational delays we were joined by our guide and eventually headed off along a jungle path towards the first temples of Tikal sometime after 6:30am. We realised we had missed out on a lot by not having a guide at Palenque and it would a welcome addition to have some sound information.
Tikal (supposedly pronounced Tik'Al as in to simulate the sound of an echo) once stretched some 120 square kilometers into the surrounding jungle although only 7% of it has now been excavated. The first inhabitants settled here some 700 years BC and it became one of the grandest trading cities in the Mayan Empire. We learnt that at the time, the jungle was completely cleared to allow for over 100 000 people to live here with agriculture requiring further clearing beyond the city. It is thought that perhaps the exhausting of the natural resources may have played a part in the mysterious disappearance of the Mayan lowland civilization around 900 AD, or so our guide suggested at least...
The day we visited the ruins of Tikal was a special as it was Janes' birthday so after our return to Flores, Jane took a yoga class before we settled into a few mojitos. We were joined by a few fellow travelers we had met along the way but couldn't last long after such an early start and were in bed in shamefully good time.
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