Day 49 – Back into Mexico
With a six hour drive ahead of us, we left Flores bright and early, after our last Guatemalan desayuno typico. We will miss fried plantains with breakfast very much. Halfway along the drive was the border with Mexico, where the car was fumigated, we got new tourist visas, and sadly had our flax seeds and rice confiscated. They tried to confiscate our chia seeds but I was most upset about this. Asking whether they would be allowed through as a “beverage” soaked in water, the inspectors saw the attachment in my eyes and allowed the chia seeds to clear customs.
It was another three hours or so from the border to Palenque where we had time for a hot chocolate in the town of Palenque before nightfall. We had heard that if you cross into the National Park surrounding the archeological site after 4:30pm the gate is unmanned and entrance is not charged. Sure enough, we drove in at nightfall and parked just beyond the gate in a restaurant’s parking lot for the evening.
Day 50 – Palenque
Palenque is another of the great Mayan cities, at its height from around 400 to 750AD. It is spread apart into a few different clusters. Upon entering, we quickly arrived at the most significant area, including the Temple of Inscriptions, the Palace, and the Tomb of the Red Queen. We spent five hours walking around the site, climbing the various temples, looking at the hieroglyphics, and buying some souvenirs from the many vendors with their wares laid out on blankets. It’s interesting to see that at the Mexican sites we’ve visited, there tend to be many vendors scattered around the site and admission tends to be cheap ($3.50/p). In Tikal and Copan vendors seemed to be banned from the site itself and admission was more expensive ($15/p).
In addition to the ruins, there’s a free museum that has a very good selection of artifacts – masks from bodies in tombs, intricate clay figures, and finely carved jade pieces. By far the most impressive piece was the Pakal’s Tomb – a giant intricately carved stone box and lid. The lid is surrounded by hieroglyphics and the museum does a fantastic job of translating each glyph to show the meaning. It’s incredible to see how archaeologists have been able to make out the glyphs and to understand their meaning.
Over our trip, we’ve now seen six big archaeological sites spread across Central America – Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, Iximche, Copan, Tikal, and Palenque. It’s been a great chance to see the similarities and differences across sites, but for now we’ve had enough of ruins.
Leaving Palenque around 2pm, we drove until just past the city of Villa Hermosa and parked the van for the night at a gas station. One of the gas station attendants let us into the staff bathroom that was free and where there was a shower. We’ll know to keep an eye out for these through the next couple weeks of sleeping in Mexico.
