Welcome To The Jungle!!!

After a full week of fun with our friends, it was time for us to move on. Meta and Uri were headed to the beaches of Oaxaca. Our destination? The jungle! That's right. We're in the jungle baby! It required a nearly 7 hour bus ride from San Cristobal to Palenque. It's actually only about 100 miles away but the twisting mountain roads and topes made it slow going.

The Bus Station

What is a tope, you might ask? (pronounced toe-pay) Well, it's pretty much Mexico's favorite road feature: the speed bump. They are everywhere. Guatemala seems to be a fan of them as well but the part of Mexico we were in seems to be filled with construction workers who are speed bump enthusiasts! If there is one small roadside stand/hut shack/ building, there are at least 3 topes in the road to slow you down. They are apparently a real killer on your car's suspension so what people tend to do is drive extremely quickly and then squeal to a near dead stop when confronted with a tope. There are signs warning you how far away the next tope is so you can plan this sudden breaking. You see a sign that says "tope a 100m" and you know you should probably put on the breaks in 90m. It's not that we're against topes. We are sure that they have saved many a person's life. It's just that there is a rediculous number of them between San Cristobal and Palenque. Here's someone painting a tope:

Also, people sometimes hold a string or rope across the road to get drivers to stop. They then ask you for money. One of our shuttle drivers actually gave a child a couple of pesos. At any rate, our tope filled bus ride had a much-welcomed distraction: movies! We watched two. It was great. After arriving in Palenque Town, we hopped on a colectivo (shared local shuttle service) to El Panchan. This would be where the jungle part of our adventure begins.

El Panchan is a collection of budget cabins based in the jungle on the way to Palenque's ruins. To steal from our travel guide: " Don Moises, founder of El Panchan, first came to Palenque as an archaelogist and was on of the first guides to the ruins. He bought a plot of land, named it Panchan - Maya for 'Heaven on Earth' - and started to raise a family. Now he has divided lots among his children who run various businesses. It's about 10 degrees C cooler at Panchan due to foliage cover. Although vastly different, all businesses have intertwined themselves into the natural jungle that surrounds them, creating a Robinson Crusoe setting."

Boy were we ever intertwined! We stayed in a cabin at Rakshita's that was very basic: tin roof, indoor/outdoor cold water shower, cracks in the wooded walls, coconuts crashing onto our tin roof in the middle of the night and scaring us (3 times!), a pet warthog living just around the corner and vibrant jungle all around us!

We enjoyed a couple of dinners at the nearby restaurant Don Mucho's where we were treated to screenings of a somewhat recent Pink Floyd concert and an 80s video mix. What else would you expect for jungle entertainment?!? The clientele in El Panchan varied from seemingly well off travelers at the "high end" establishment to the very low budget "hippies" sleeping in hammocks on a palapa and rocking a hippie drum circle. It was very unique and interesting place to stay.

Our day at Palenque's ruins was spectacular! We took our time exploring the site, climbing up and down steep pyramids, spotting wildlife and learning about this people's way of life. It was fascinating.

Palenque started out as a small agricultural village in the fourth century AD and rose to achieve greatness as the first rank of Maya states between AD600 and 800. Lord Pacaya was their famous ruler who really made Palenque into a big deal. You can still see some of the decor and stucco carvings on some of the structures. We also saw their amazingly elaborate incense burners and jade pieces that are kept in the museum down the road. The fact that these structures were built over 1200 years ago and they are still intact enough for tourists to climb around on them every day is a testament to the Mayan people.

As we were checking out the prisoner's area of the palace, we were approached by four Mexican language students. They were there on a field trip with their Italian language teacher and their assignment was to find Italian tourists and practice speaking with them. They had 3 hours to complete the task. They weren't having too much luck in their "hunt" (their word, not ours) for Italians so they settled for speaking English with us instead. We were having the most lovely conversation explaining the differences between the verbs "ask", "tell" and "say" when the students suddenly became distracted. The girl shouted out "Frances" and pointed to a couple from Belgium passing by. Apparently they like to speak French more because before long, they were all speaking with the Belgiums. It was pretty cute.

Here they are speaking French:

All in all, we enjoyed Palenque (and the jungle) a great deal and look forward to more of the same at Guatemala's famous Tikal ruins!