Palenque Ruins

Tuesday January 27…11:00pm

We left the campground at about 8am, and walked up to the Palenque ruins entrance.

An old truck near the ruins entrance

In the half hour or so it took to walk to the entrance, we had already seen about 8 full size buses pass us. We had been trying to get there before the crowds, but it seems many people show up early to these ruins. We paid the 51 pesos ($4.65 CAN, $3.75 US) each entrance fee.

The ruins at Palenque are set in the jungle taking up an area of about 20 square miles. Only the central portion has been cleared and excavated. This ancient city flourished from 100 BC to 900 AD. It was discovered by the Spanish in 1750, but was not explored in modern times until about 1950. It is now a Mexican National Park and Archeological zone.

El Palacio (The Palace)

Ruth inside El Placio

In the courtyard of El Palacio

Tempo de las Inscripciones where K'inich Janaab' Pakal tomb lies

This is definitely the best ruins we have visited, and as such we will likely not visit any more. Once you’ve seen Palenque, it just doesn’t get any better. It took us 3 hours to walk the grounds and get back to Sherman. All but one of the structures you can climb to the top of, so there are a lot of steps and hills. Our legs were pretty tired by the end of it.

Templo del Sol (Temple of the Sun)

El Palacio looking down from the Templo de la Cruz

The tower in El Palacio

Grupo Norte buildings

Templo del Sol, Templo XIV and XV and El Palacio along with the steps of the Templo de la Cruz

The waterfalls on the pathway down to the exit at the bottom of the hill

In the afternoon, I walked with the laptop to the museum and bookstore to see if they had internet, and they did, but it was a secured signal. So I hopped on my bicycle and rode in the direction of town. There are quite a few small hotels between the campground and the town of Palenque which is 8 kms away. I found one called Chan Kah only about 2.6 kms away that has a small internet café, and they allowed me to use their wifi for free because I had my own laptop.

When I left the hotel, I could hear the howler monkeys fairly close by. Just after I got back on the main rode, there were a couple of cars pulled over and people pointing up into a tree. Sure enough, there were 5 monkeys in the tree. The noise they make is truly incredible. It sound very much like a lion roaring, but louder. Surprisingly, they aren’t that big…about the same size as our dog Whiskey, who is about 22 pounds. From talking to people who have been here before, it’s very rare to actually get to see these monkeys, although you can hear them every day. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me!

We had a visitor inside the motorhome. He was all legs, but he was pretty big. We tried, but he didn’t make it out alive.

Our spider friend inside of Sherman

We’ve decided to stay here one more day. Bill and Bonnie are also going to San Cristobal via the mountain highway, so we’re all going to stop together at the Agua Azul waterfalls for a night. It’s not supposed to be the safest area, so you’re supposed to camp in groups of two or more. But the waterfalls are apparently a “must see” thing to do, so we’ll be glad to have each others company for that stop.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…461

January Fuel $180.50 CAN

January Grocery $218.62 CAN

January Overnight costs $127.86 CAN