Mexico - Palenque

The heavens opened when we arrived into Palenque. We were here to see yet more ruins and enjoy the jungle of Mexico. We decided to head out to El Panchen which is outside of the town near to the ruins. In the jungle, you sleep in cabins with the sound of the Jungle to send you to sleep (Tanya – or bizarre techno music on a Friday night).

Arriving at the entry road to the jungle hideouts in the taxi we were greeted with a torrential river going over the road. After putting the raincovers on our backpacks we tried to wade across the newly formed river, only for me to step in a pothole and send the water up to my thighs. Tanya spotted a path which was required much less wading. When we got to the accommodations a girl was saying that two of the cabins were flooded out. We were a little worried what we had gotten into here.

Once a road...

The lady showed us to our cabin which was a few centimetres above the flowing river behind it. She said to put our bags on the bed in case the water rose further... We were heading straight out to the ruins so we would see what carnage awaited us when we returned.

Our rear balcony

The rain had stopped now luckily and when we got out to the ruins, it started to heat up a bit walking amongst them. Palenque ruins were unique as they are more intertwined with the jungle than we saw at the other ruins back in Yucatan.

Walking down through the ruins to the exit, the path (now a river with the high water) took us past some waterfalls which were even more powerful thanks to the rain. After we exited, we stopped into the free museum which has a lot of the treasures recovered from the site, these were pretty impressive especially the large sarcophagus from the temple.

High waters have turned the path to a river

We got back to El Panchen and all the water that was around before was gone, the road that was a river, was back to a road. The water behind our cabin had dropped about a meter and a half and looked like a nice gentle little river.

The road has returned

At the restaurant that night we chatted with some Aussie travellers all while a live band played and some dancers performed. At the same time, the heavens opened and the torrential rain started. At the end of the night Tan and I had to make a mad dash back to the cabin and got completely saturated. Its damp in the jungle and there was no chance of our clothes drying overnight!

The following day we were taken out to an area called Agua Azul. We first stopped at a big waterfall which was really cranking some power with the water from yesterday. Armed just with my boardshorts and waterproof camera i went on the path behind the waterfall. It was crazy with the amount of spray that was being kicked up from it.

After a change of clothes we headed off to Agua Azul which is a series of tiered waterfalls that have a brilliant blue colour to them. Unfortunately for us, all the rain had washed lots of sediment into the river and the bright blue waters were just a normal slightly brown colour instead. Oh well, its easy to see how they would be really picturesque in the right conditions.

We got another night bus that evening (as the heavens opened up yet again) to head back to Mexico City where we passed another night before our flight out to Chicago. This was the end of 5 months in Latin America, and just like all the rest of the time, it was full of more great experiences.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – The Palenque ruins were good being a bit unique compared the others we saw. The waterfalls were good though, but not as impressive thanks to the amazing amount of water that we saw fall from the sky in the few days there. The locals were well accustomed to it all though, and didn’t really seem to care too much.

Tanya – I have to say that the Palenque ruins were my favourite, even though the tower has been rebuilt to some degree. El Panchan was a good choice for a place to stay, its really cheap and the restaurant out there is fantastic (cheap too), apparently with different entertainment every night. It was a shame we didn’t have the best weather for the waterfalls, but they were very impressive none-the-less. Its so sad to say goodbye to the Latin America part of our journey – of course its gone way too fast! Adios!!