Mayan Ruins of Palenque

By Nicole

A twelve hour drive from our marina, over expansive mountain ranges, past quiet farms and through thick jungle terrain led the crews of Bella Star, Bravo and Nanna to the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque.  We were able to split the trip into 6-hour hops, but it was still a long, winding, speed-bump filled ride (do you really need speed bumps every 100’ for like 50 miles?).  And our bus ride back was a little terrifying, as we barreled along the narrow road, clung to cliff sides and passed slow-moving vehicles on one blind corner after another.  Was it worth it, though?  Absolutely.

Seeing the ruins for the first time was an incredible experience.  I was awe-struck and probably repeated the phrase “ohmygosh” a dozen times in the first five minutes.

 Awesome!  That’s me down there, giving some scale to the huge pyramids.

The Mayan ruins of Palenque are located in a national park, deep in the southern Mexican jungle.  Dating from around 100 BC to 800 AD, Palenque was an expansive Maya city state with temples, plazas and numerous other structures.  It’s a huge site, but due to funding and various reasons, only about 2% of it has been excavated.  That means that around 98% of the ruins still lie buried in the jungle!  Wow.

Ask the tour guide we hired on-site about the documented history of Palenque, though, and he’ll tell you “it’s all a bunch of garbage.”

Victor, who’s been around the site since 1965, working next to the archaeologists and doing his own research, presents a very convincing, or at least interesting, case for rewriting what’s known about Mayan culture during Palenque’s heyday.

 Our colorful tour guide, Victor, tells his version of the Mayan story.

It’s Victor’s firm belief that contemporary societies of the time—the Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks and others—had direct ties to the Mayan world.  That is, people from China, Egypt and Greece visited Palenque regularly, bringing bits of their culture along with them.  Thus you see carvings of Chinese dragons and people in Egyptian dress in multiple locations around the site.  One carving is even said to be that of King Tut (Victor said he actually died of a cocaine overdose—cocaine he brought back to Egypt with him from Palenque).

Chinese-style dragon carving on a Mayan temple?  Believe it or not.

Whether you buy Victor’s theories or not, there’s no denying that the Mayan city of Palenque is a beautiful and enchanting place.

The tops of two pyramids peek out from the grass, waiting to be unearthed

These ruins reminded me of King Louie from The Jungle Book

The pyramids are steep and the risers on the steps are tall – climbing up and down (and up and down) was quite a workout in the 90-degree heat …

… so Aaron decided to take a little break

The requisite Aaron & Nicole arm shot

The inland tour crew – on the left, Cindy and Adam from s/v Bravo; Isabelle is next to me and Magnus is next to Aaron (from s/v Nanna).  A fun group!

Trails lead off from the site deep into the jungle.  We followed one of the trails for about two hours, meandering past waterfalls and unexcavated ruins hidden amongst the vines and trees.  We even saw howler monkeys and a toucan.

 Look closely and you’ll see unexcavated ruins hiding under the roots and vines

 Lovely little waterfall along the jungle trail

 Aaron called these falls “stupid pretty”

That black lump is a howler monkey.  Really!  I got a video of four of them
messing about, but it’s pretty boring.  Although they did drop sticks on us.

Perhaps Victor implanted radical ideas in my head, but I left Palenque feeling a bit spellbound.  It is truly an amazing place.  If you go, be sure to spend the night!  The two-hour tour just doesn’t cut it.

---

Next up – blue waterfalls!