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...
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