Day Twelve - Palenque

This trip has been absolutely amazing, but it’s also brought me a lot in the injury department… :-/ Yesterday I awoke to a black and blue/swollen ankle…I slipped (but caught myself) on a sidewalk in Campeche, and guess I sprained it. Then on the bus ride to Chiapas, a mosquito flew into my eye and I couldn’t find it for almost an hour. All this pales in comparison to my first sting ever. While climbing the temples in Palenque, I put my hand on a stone to guide myself while walking and caught my ring finger on some sort of a black insect that stung me and flew away. OUCH! Being that I’m allergic to so many things, I was nervous that I’d be allergic to the sting, but it turned out okay. My finger hurt for a few hours, but I’m better now! With all this great luck, I’m glad I got out of the pool when the rain storm started today…don’t want to be getting too close to lightning these days…


So, anyway…Chiapas! We arrived in the city of Palenque, Chiapas last night and are staying at an amazing resort village called Chan-Kah. The village is located at the start of the rainforest and is covered in beautiful flora (plants). We heard fell asleep to the wail of howler monkeys last night and woke up to the sound of exotic birds…HOW COOL!

This morning we had a LONG bus ride (5 minutes!) to the ruins of the ancient Mayan city called Palenque. Palenque was in existence from around 200 B.C. to A.D. 800. According to our guide, only 2% of the site has been excavated and there are likely thousands of other buildings yet to be discovered. Unlike Chichen Itza and Edzna, we were able to climb to the top of most of the temples. One of the temples we went into contained the sarcophagus of an ancient Mayan queen. The coolest fact I learned was that the Queen’s temple, along with the King’s temple, and another building were lined up to match with the three stars of Orion’s belt. In fact, it is the belief of archaeologists that the entire site of Palenque was built to represent the locations of the celestial objects [stars] the Mayans saw, almost like a map of the constellations. Another fun part thing to learn was that the Mayans in Palenque had sophisticated plumbing methods and built aqueducts to carry their water. They even had a toilet that was reminiscent of those I saw in Ephesus, Turkey last summer!

I was happy to relax by the pool this afternoon and then on the patio of my casita during the rain storm, but one thing I am not looking forward to is the six-hour journey to the city of San Cristobal, also in the state of Chiapas. Here we go again…