Palenque

After the icy evenings of San Cristobal, we were relieved to discover that the small town of Palenque was in the middle of the jungle – a return to tropical temperatures to thaw off a little! OK, the jungle environment does have some disadvantages, say the odd mosquito or two… or maybe two hundred. I think Gary preferred the icy altitudes as he spent most of our first night in Palenque trying to track down the mossies in our room and squish them with the huge Mexican Lonely Planet Guide! I had a much more restful night – I must be less tasty!

Anyway, the main reason to visit Palenque isn’t to see the town itself but the spectacular Maya ruins nearby (also called Palenque). This is just as well as the town seems to consist of an extensive network of road works as far as we could see – although if you could scramble through the trenches and mud that replaced the streets you could find the odd plaza or park. But the adjacent ancient Maya city is beautiful.

Situated on the edge of the jungle, Palenque Maya city consists of numerous impressively complicated and beautifully preserved buildings in stunning surroundings. As you enter the site you climb a short flight of stairs through the undergrowth to emerge on a grassy expanse in front of a series of elegant stone temples – and from here it’s only a short walk to numerous palaces, pyramids, and tombs, all carefully restored and maintained. The Templo de las Inscriptions is a beautifully proportioned pyramid tomb just a stone’s throw from the huge El Palacio with its soaring tower and labyrinthine tunnels. Or move slightly further along to the Templo del Sol with its weird roof comb, and then climb the Templo de la Cruz for breathtaking views down over the complex. This is simply a very intricate collection of numerous intriguing buildings, all at the edge of a beautiful jungle. Definitely worth visiting!

Unfortunately lots of people have realised this… we didn’t exactly have the place to ourselves. The vast majority of visitors to Palenque were in huge tour groups – each had 30 to 40 overheated, middle aged people dutifully following a yapping guide around. From our point of view the groups were really annoying to be caught behind, but on the other hand if you successfully dodged them you could explore the ruins in relative peace! We really felt sorry for the poor sods in the groups – some of them looked so bored! Which is tragic in such a beautiful and interesting place. What’s more, none of the groups strayed from the first collection of buildings, even though there was so much more to see. After exploring the upper cluster of temples you could walk downhill through the jungle to explore other groups of buildings, all isolated and some completely immersed in the undergrowth. Ducking under palm trees and clambering over Maya stonework alongside elegant waterfall cascades while howler monkeys shrieked eerily in the trees above… wandering through these ruined complexes felt like exploring an Indiana Jones set.

Anyway, our stop in Palenque was necessarily brief as we have a tight schedule to keep to if we are to make it to Cancun in time for our flight home! Next we move on to Merida, a colonial town on the northwest corner of the Yucatan Peninsula – and within striking distance of a few more Maya playgrounds!

Palenque Pictures

The wonderful line of temples that greet you as you step through the jungle into Palenque! Closest is the wonderful Templo De Les Inscriptions, and as you move further away you see a tomb containing a red-sarcophagus (which used to house a red-dyed queen), and a smaller temple decorated with carvings of rabbit sculls. Wierd place!

Here you can see a very small Vicki on the steps of the rabbit-skull temple. Bearing in mind this is one of the smaller structures in the complex, you can start to get an impression of the size of the place.

And this photo of Gary on the grassy lawn in front of the wonderful Temple of Inscriptions also helps give an idea of scale! This tomb is possibly the most impressive we've seen since the pyramids in Cairo - a really beautiful tiered white pyramid with a simple temple structure on top. Very elegant.

If you climb to the top of one of the tallest pyramids in Palenque this photo to the left with Gary shows the view that greets you. It is a stunning view - a good reward for the hot, tiring climb up the never-ending steps (see the photograph below showing Gary half way up...). On the left of the view you can see the wierd Temple Del Sol, with its very odd roof, and to the right are the wonderful structures shown in the first picture of this blog entry.

More wonderful views! This time on the right of the picture you can see the lovely 'Palace' - complete with soaring tower and labyrhythine tunnels riddling the stone base. Really impressive.

This is a quiet green part of the complex we wandered through as we descended into the jungle. Again, by the size of the tiny Vicki in the corner you can see how vast Palenque is! From here we started to hear the cries of the howler monkeys - really loud and scarily eerie shrieks! We wondered at first if someone was being tortured in the jungle undergrowth! It certainly added some atmosphere to the place...

San Cristobal De Las Casas

After spending a turbulent night on the coach from Oaxaca, we hoped that San Cristobal would be a pleasant place to recuperate. Or San Cristobal De Las Casas to give the town’s full name – what a mouthful! Unfortunately, San Cristobal maybe a pretty town with brightly colour buildings, lively plazas and twisting streets, but it’s also FREEZING! We thought we’d left the high-altitude iciness back in Peru and Bolivia, but apparently not. In the 5 minutes it took to walk from the bus terminal to our hotel my poor toes turned to 10 lumps of ice… typically Gary thought the icy temperature was ‘refreshing’! Grrr.

Anyway, if you get over the temperature with lots of vigorous walking by day, having hot Mexican food for dinner and huddling under blankets at night, San Cristobal isn’t such a bad place to relax. It’s a small town, but it really is a pleasure to explore the cobbled streets, or to wander up one of the surrounding hills to peer into one of the little colonial churches that perch on top. We even browsed some of the shops selling locally-mined amber – Gary was a little taken aback when I explained that the translucent yellow ‘rock’ was effectively hardened resin, and could even feature trapped insects…

Well, we will now descend into jungle territory, where hopefully it will be a bit warmer! Over the next few days we’ll travel north into the Yucatan peninsula towards the sunny beaches of Cancun, Playa Del Carman and Isla Cozumel – so we’re pretty hopeful that the weather will warm up.

San Cristobal Photos

The colourful main street of San Cristobal - and a rare example of blue sky! Luckily this little town remains pretty in cloudy, rainy, miserably cold weather...

San Cristobal has two very pretty churches on top of hills overlooking the town. Lots of steps to climb up to the top though! Here Gary takes a break half way up one hill, and below he made me stand on a seat for a photo on the top of the other one.

An overview of the colourful town - colourful despite the grey looming clouds!

Oaxaca

I found it completely impossible to pronounce the name ‘Oaxaca’ for the entire duration of our stay in the pretty little town. The problem is that in Mexican Spanish the ‘o’ becomes a ‘w’ and the ‘x’ approximates to an ‘h’… completely defeating my attempts, and making Gary’s version sound like ‘Wa-ha-ka’. Hmm. In any case, Oaxaca (however you pronounce it) is a really lovely place to visit – an exceptionally pretty colonial town, littered with pretty plazas, marble-white churches, colourful old buildings and lively cobbled streets. Just perfect for passing a lazy afternoon in a curb-side café sipping espresso and watching people wander past.

Another nice thing about the town is that it is surrounded by a number of curious places which make great day trips when you’re tired of all that exhausting lounging around in cafes over lunch. Perhaps the most random is the tiny village of El Tule – which is easily reached by collectivo as it’s only 10km from Oaxaca (and has almost been absorbed as a suburb of the town). The village itself is pleasant but unremarkable save for the churchyard. Here the pretty little white church is completely dwarfed by a massive tree which is claimed to be the largest in the world! I’ve no idea if this is true – at 49m high it certainly isn’t the tallest, but the trunk may be the widest with a massive diameter of 12m. It’s certainly an impressive plant – an ahuehuete (Montezuma cypress) estimated to be over 1500 years old it was growing when the powerful ancient civilisations of this region were thriving and constructing equally impressive cities…

Which brings me to Monte Alban, our other excursion from Oaxaca. Monte Alban is an ancient and extensive mountain-top city constructed by the Zapotecs several from hundred years AD. There are no huge pyramids here as there were in Teotihuacán near Mexico City, but an impressive range of palaces, temples courtyards and tombs, all perched on top of a vast flattened mountain top with spectacular views down over the surrounding valleys. It is a really large and impressive site which took us a few hours to explore. To be honest at this point we’re beginning to wonder just how many fantastic archaeological sites there are in Mexico from one civilisation or another as we haven’t even got close to the more famous ones yet!

Anyway, despite being a lovely relaxing little town we couldn’t stay long in Oaxaca as we are now into the last month of our trip – and there’s a lot to see in our route across Mexico. We’ve just arrived at our next stop, San Cristobal, after a tiring overnight bus journey, and will recover here in the icy high altitude climate for a day or two before hitting Palenque and the lands of the Mayas.

Oaxaca Pictures

This giant tree is claimed locally to be the largest in the world - well, at 48m high it certainly isn't the tallest, but with a trunk diameter of 12m it may be the widest! Have a look a the picture with Gary below. The tree is in a village next to Oaxaca called El Tule, where it dwarfs the little white church.

This is the fantastic ancient hilltop city of Monte Albin - only 6km from Oaxaca the views over town are stunning. This citadel was constructed over hundreds of years by the Zapotecs - it's huge (as you can see from the tiny image of me at the back of these steps... And it has lots of lovely palaces, temples, huge plazas and courtyards.... all immaculately restored. Great ruins. We particularly liked some of the stone carvings scattered around the place. Apparently the various tribes of ancient Mexico were pretty bloodthirsty - lots of sacrifices, beheadings etc. The speciality of the Zapotecs was to perform a malignant form of castration first - they would cut off the genitalia of the tribe leaders they conquered. And then they would carve the images of these figures into their walls - complete with gushing blood in the region of the genitals! Have a look at this specimin to see what we mean...

A nice overview of a corner of the Monte Albin Complex - a few pyramids, a small Gary, and lovely views over the surrounding valleys in the background.

Mexico City

Many descriptions of Mexico City don’t exactly advertise it as the most appealing place to visit… one of the most crime-ridden cities in the world, permanent smog of pollution, 4 kidnappings a day, dangerous layers of ground-level ozone… erm, very tasty! So when we realised our plane from Lima was arriving relatively late in the evening we wondered how difficult it was going to be to make it to our hotel at all, let alone in one piece. As it turned out we didn’t have too many problems, especially as we found the vast majority of the residents of Mexico City remarkably friendly and helpful.

I think the key to moving around Mexico City is the avoidance of taxis. Most kidnappings are intended for theft only – short term ‘express-kidnappings’ aimed only at emptying the victim’s bank accounts before release. And the majority of these happen to wealthy people using taxis. Hail a fake cab by mistake on the street and your driver will take you to the destination of his choice rather than yours, where his friends await. Nasty, but fortunately very easy to avoid – don’t use taxis! Actually large cab companies such as the airport taxis are meant to be safe, but even these aren’t essential as the underground system actually reaches the airport (or at least it’s only a 10 minute walk away). Fortunately the metro is extensive, cheap, relatively modern, and safe… i.e. lots of armed guards everywhere! The guards were actually very helpful when we arrived, and even let us onto the system for free so that we didn’t have to lug our bags 200m or so to the other end of the station to get to the ticket booths!

After successfully negotiating our way to the centre of town with all limbs and luggage intact, we found that Mexico City is actually a very pleasant place to explore. The streets reminded us a lot of Santiago, not particularly surprising as both were originally Spanish Colonial Capitals. Mexico City however is much larger, and has a more impressive array of central Plazas, Cathedrals and (as it appears to be much wealthier) shopping malls! Nice for wandering around in the afternoon before having an enchilada or taco for tea. We haven’t seen any margaritas on offer here yet though - shame.

One disconcerting thing about Mexico City is the presence of very large numbers of guards and police. They are everywhere, and remarkably well armed. OK, the police only tend to have a revolver and a menacing truncheon apiece, but the security guards frequently wield long shot-guns or even automatic weapons! It’s a bit disconcerting walking into a department store past a bloke with an Uzi… it really made us wonder how often these things are fired. We saw no crime during our stay but we were perturbed nonetheless.

Anyway, after a day exploring the centre of town we decided to head out to the suburbs by bus to explore some ancient Mexican ruins at Teotihuacán. These impressive (and totally unpronounceable) twin pyramids are only 50km from Mexico City, and easily reached by public bus from the Northern Bus Terminal. They were apparently constructed by the Teotihuacán’s, who were the dominant force in this part of Mexico before the Aztecs arrived. The complex is huge, several square kilometres of stone avenues, plazas, temples and pyramids of all shapes and sizes, but the star attractions are the massive temples of the Sun and Moon. The Pyramid Del Sol is actually the third largest pyramid on Earth, second only to the largest pyramid in Egypt and another Mexican effort. Unlike the Egyptian pyramids at Giza (see www.catch-up-with-the-sun-africa.blogspot.com for photos), the Mexican pyramids at Teotihuacán aren’t perfectly pyramidal but have ‘steps’ or levels at intervals up their sides. This looks a little odd when you see the structures from an angle in the distance, but as you draw closer and look at them perfectly end-on the impression is spectacular.

We spent hours wandering around the complex, climbing up and down hundreds of stone steps as we moved from court to court, and then right up to the top of the Pyramid Del Sol. It is a fantastic site to explore – the only drawback is that you get pestered every few steps by souvenir-selling locals. Just like the Pyramids in Cairo! Some of the Mexican touts had selling pitches we hadn’t heard before though – ‘Senorita, a silver bracelet? Almost free!’. Almost… My favourite was ‘buy for your Mother-in-law’ – the guy who said that was a bit taken aback when we doubled up in laughter and ran away! I wonder what pitches the salesmen around the Maya ruins will try on us over the next few weeks.

Anyway, our stay in Mexico City had to be very brief as we now have just under a month to travel across the country by bus – and there is a lot we plan to see and do on the way. Our first stop is the completely unpronounceable colonial town of Oaxaca, which is apparently one of the best places to sample Mexican Cuisine. After our months of variable South American fare this should be great!

Mexico City Photos

The Central Plaza (or Zocalo) of Mexico City - a huge square surrounded by elegant colonial buildings including this Cathedral that Gary kindly posed in front of. The Plaza is pretty impressive - OK, it's not on the same scale as Tiananmen Square in China or Red Square in Russia, but it certainly beats any other plaza we've seen in the Americas.

This elegant white hall (the Palacio de Bellas Artes) was also in the centre of town - near a pretty tree-filled park with endless rows of market stalls. This is one of the few photos we have of Mexico City where the sky is actually blue - most of the time it was a smoggy grey... Not quite as grey as the skies we saw in China, but the polluted air here made us sneeze and cough a lot more than that in Beijing.

The impressive Pyramid Del Sol with a tiny Gary standing a good 50m in front of the structure to lend a bit of perspective! It's a truly huge pile of rock - with over 300 steps leading to the top. Hard work to climb, but well worth the effort for the glorious views...

... such as this, towards the slightly smaller (and slightly prettier) Pyramid Del Luna! Again we have a very tiny Gary in the foreground to give you an impression of scale - he's standing only one 'level' down from where I'm taking the photo. And this pyramid had lots of 'levels'!

Here we have the elegant court of the smaller (but still massive) Pyramid Del Luna - this Moon Temple had very balanced proportions making it slightly more aesthetically pleasing than its big brother.

And finally, the Pyramid Del Sol from the Pyramid Del Luna - as you can see the Moon Pyramid was well worth the climb for the views too!