We caught a collectivo, similar to a large van, to Palenque ruins before 8am. The ruins didn't open till 8, but already there were tourists, buses and vendors swarming the entrance. We purchased tickets to enter and pushed our way through, walked up some stairs, along a well maintained dirt path with rocks on the borders, ushering us to this:
Here's one of many history lessons for the day.
Palenque was first occupied by the Mayans around 100 BC and later flourished in 630-740 AD under the reign of ruler Pakal, and then succeeded by his sons. At that time, hundreds of buildings were built over 15 sq km; only a handful of these have been excavated and restored. The current, preserved area is 2 sq km and was once home to 8,000 Mayans. Much of the history of Palenque has been reconstructed from reading the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the monuments. At the time of Pakal's ruling, Palenque was a political force of power with a strong army to back it. Residents lived off of local resources: mainly corn, meat from roaming animals including one breed of dog, and the arroyos- rivers- that wind through the mountainous land. Once it's resources ran low and stress from the wars increased, Palenque was abandoned.
The restored buildings that exist served four purposes back in the day: war, religion, power and residence. The grandest and most impressive buildings were devoted to power; they included living quarters for the ruler and their family, and halls and courtyards to host events. The residential ruins were reserved for the servants and lower class. The war temples seemed to be showcases of warriors that had been killed, often housing numerous carved tablets depicting the torture of the prisoner. Few temples still had the original tablets and carvings present on the walls but many authentic stone carvings could be found in the museum. The religious temples were devoted to their many Gods and were places of worship.
The Palace.
This was the residence of the ruling family and his court. Since ceremonies and festivals were also performed in this space, this building had to meet the needs of all kinds of activities concerned with the ruler. This was the only building that we were able to explore thoroughly.
The Tower, in one of many courtyards of The Palace. Essentially, this was on the roof of the ruins.
Doing cartwheels in the other courtyard of The Palace.
From the top of the Temple of the Cross, three temples devoted to their three Gods whose names are unknown so referred to as GI, GII and GIII. The Palace can be seen on the far right.
Northern Group- the stairs were insanely steep and usually too short in width to fit your entire foot.
On our walk from the ruins towards the museum, we passed a beautiful waterfall. After walking past it, we heard a howling noise coming from the waterfall area, which made us roll our eyes. We assumed it was coming from one of the souvenirs everyone was selling, shaped like a howler monkey that you could blow in to and it would replicate the call of a howler monkey. We walked 50 ft further before stopping on the trail where some locals were nonchalantly gazing into the thick jungle surrounding us. They walked away just as we spotted two howler monkeys jumping vines. We lost them quickly, but listened to them howl as we continued walking.
Back in Palenque town, we partook in the best tacos we've had yet and a little down time at the hostel. In the evening, we headed back out to find some dinner (pepperoni pizza) and then found ourselves amidst a large crowd of people at the central park for a show. Initially, there was a band of 5 hombres playing a variety of percussion instruments which then transitioned to a larger group of dancers in traditional Mexican dress. We enjoyed the festivities but called it an early night, knowing our turkey friend wouldn't allow us to sleep in.
Thursday we had an 8am departure on another classy bus. We were headed for Campeche, a colonial town on the Gulf of Mexico. Due to the heavy travel that occurs for Semaña Santa, we reserved a hotel on booking.com and checked in around 2pm, after walking 1.2 miles with our packs on in 90 degree weather. We hit the town to explore; we first quenched our hunger with a small serving of shrimp cocktail, followed by a few hours strolling along the well kept malecón, or esplanade.
During our walk through town square, we passed a Chinese Buffet restaurant. Funny enough, we were discussing how our cravings for ceviche and seafood would be met in this town, but after seeing that we had the opportunity to not only eat Chinese food, but also satisfy our need to stay on budget (we were hungry, we could eat our monies worth at a buffet!), we decided to go for it. The sign out front said 90 pesos para adulto, and below that it read apartir de los 6:00, 65 pesos para adulto. Our mediocre translation skills led us to believe this meant if we ate before 6:00pm, we could save 25 pesos or roughly $1.66 each. We were in. We wandered back to the restaurant at 5:30, sat down, and then clarified: "65 pesos, si?" The hostess said a lot of words but si was not one of them and her body language told us we didn't guess the translation correctly. At this point, we were hungry (like, buffet hungry) and our hearts were set on Chinese. So we went searching for an Internet cafe to google translate what apartir de really means. We were unsuccessful in finding Internet, so instead asked a random local and with hand gestures and good examples, we understood apartir de means "at exactly". We sat on a bench in central park, conveniently positioned with our eyes on the door of the restaurant and within ear shot of the church bell that would ring when it was our dinner time. At exactly 6:00pm, we walked back in, trying not to look too desperate or needy. The waitress smiled and nodded as she said "65 pesos." Five plates and six drinks later, we got our monies worth.
Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Purisma Concepción
Today (Friday) was another cultural day, in our book. History Lesson #2: Campeche and pirates. Campeche was founded in 1540 and, obviously being located right on the Gulf, is a port town. In 1557, it suffered its first attack by pirates. The town began to develop strategies to protect itself, but every two or three years, it fell victim to another pirate attack. The defensive system of Campeche began in the late 1500s through 1684, when they built watchtowers, used churches and monasteries for safe havens, and created isolated forts and trenches. Between 1684 and 1710, a walled system was constructed that later made the city famous. An irregular hexagonal shape with a bastion at each corner, the wall had four main gates to monitor who entered the main center. By the time the wall was completed, Pirates had died out, as the countries that initially encouraged pirate activity then began to dissuade it and punish them. The wall still exists, surrounding an adorable but apparently relatively deserted downtown, with buildings color coordinated in bright pastels.
We spent an hour or more inside an informative and new museum devoted to sharing Campeche's history, after the town was made a World Heritage Site in 1999. Another hour or two were devoted to other less impressive museums, one of which was a home from the late 1700s preserved with most of its original European and Cuban style decorations and furniture, and another of Mayan history which in comparison to Palenque, didn't awe us. We also saw a procession near the main cathedral, with a group of young men carrying a statue of Jesus on the cross and a parade of locals following while singing and praying. Other than that, we ate good food today and took advantage of the small pool that our most expensive hotel yet had to offer.
Tomorrow we jump onto yet another bus, heading for the large city of Merida. We plan to stay for 4 or 5 days, as it seems we've been switching towns every other day for awhile now. We look forward to celebrating the culmination of Semaña Santa on Sunday, and possibly a day trip from Merida to the ocean for a quick dip in the warm waters of the Gulf.
Thank you so much for sharing all this. The pictures of Palenque are awesome and your info on both towns is very interesting.
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