Palenque

Tags: Latest, Mexico, North-America, Travel

Palenque is a prime example of Mayan culture and has a spectacular location in the dense jungle of Mexico. It took us almost 24 hours to get from the slopes of Orizaba to Palenque.

From Tlachichuca we took the bus (2-3 hours) to the huge Capo Terminal in Puebla. We hoped to find a direct bus to Palenque. We did, but it turned out to be only one departure a day, a night-bus which departed in the evening. Rather than hanging around the terminal for many hours, we decided to check into one of the budget hotels near the terminal. For a cheap price we could rest there for 5-6 hours before boarding the nightbus.

The ADO bus was nice, but it was by no means a sleeping bus. We arrived Palenque Town in the morning after 12 hours on the bus. Instead of staying in town we wanted to find a guesthouse near the ruins. So we jumped into one of the frequent collectivos that goes towards the ruins (20 pesos). They dropped us off near Margarita & Ed's Cabanas, listed in Lonely Planet. We got a cheap room and crashed into the beds after a torturous long journey from Pico de Orizaba. Luckily there is a very good restaurant nearby, Don Mucho's, where we enjoyed most of our meals while staying in Palenque.

Next morning we visited the Mayan Ruins. The site is set in a hot and dense jungle, but it's fairly small compared to some other Mayan sites. Once inside the gates, there is nowhere to buy bottled water. So I got severely dehydrated when climbing all the stairs and temples. Palenque was a Maya city that flourished in the 7th century. For many centuries it has been buried under the dense jungle, but it's not difficult to see what great civilization this once was.

After two nights in Palenque we took the ADO bus to Campeche where we spent one night. Then we continue with another ADO bus to Valladolid nearby the famous Mayan Ruins of Chichen Itza.

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