Maya Bell Campground Near Palenque

Sunday January 25…10:30pm

Had a good sleep, although there was a little bit of truck traffic through the night.

We had a quick walk around the grounds of the restaurant…it’s a nice scenic spot. They have quite a few farm birds wandering around. Turkeys, chickens, etc., and a peacock. It’s been years since I’ve seen a peacock spread his tail feathers, and I looked out the window to see them in full bloom! I ran to get the camera, and snuck around outside…and managed to take just one slightly blurry picture before he quickly tucked them all in again.

Peacock with feathers open

Laguna de Silvituc from the Maya Campstre Restaurant

Outdoor eating at the Maya Campstre Restaurant

We encountered just about every possible type of road conditions today. Roads under construction, roads recently completed and in great condition, roads recently completed and in poor condition, and roads in bad need of repair! Lots of topes (speed bumps) today as well. In one town, there was a section at the beginning where they had three speed bumps in a row (they call them vibradores) and they were not marked at all. We hit them fairly hard and the left front wheel cover went rolling off. There was a family waiting for a bus at the side of the road, and it came close to hitting them. I went back and got it, and apologized, but they didn’t seem fazed by the incident. In other cases, there is a sign for a tope, but no tope exists. This is Mexico!

We stopped 25 kms outside the town of Palenque (pop about 35,000) and got some more gas. Our next section of driving will be through the mountains to San Cristobal, and it’s mostly uphill. In fact, I think the altitude goes from 750 ft here, up to 6,500 feet in San Cristobal in about 220 kms (136 miles). We won’t get very good gas mileage doing all that uphill stuff, so we’ll start with enough gas to make sure we get there!

Had to pay 22 pesos ($1.98 CAN $1.60 US) each to enter Palenque National Park where the ruins are located. There are several small hotels and campgrounds along this road. We are parked at the Maya Bell campground and restaurant. It is a nice setting in the jungle, and is the closest campground to the ruins…in fact it is walking distance. There are about 25 sites here, and it is about half full. It is reasonably priced at 150 pesos ($13.50 CAN, $10.80 US) for full hookups, or 100 pesos ($9.00 CAN, $7.20 US) for dry camping. We chose full hookups for the time being, because there is lots of shade and I don’t think we’ll get enough solar power in. Besides, for the price difference it seems worth it. We will likely stay here 3 or 4 days. We’ll relax tomorrow, and then do the ruins early Tuesday morning. These ruins are supposed to be the best in Mexico, so we’re looking forward to it.

We met a couple from Saskatchewan and sat with them for quite a while. They drove down here in a Chevy Van and they did it in 4 days!

They have hot showers here! First time I’ve had a shower with hot water since we were at Carmens in Cancun almost a month ago!

At around 8pm this evening, a couple we were camped with at Xpu-Ha beach, Bill and Bonnie, parked up two sites over from us. They were the ones who had suggested we park at the restaurant yesterday, and they are also heading to San Cristobal. We’ll wait until tomorrow to say hi to them.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…459

January Fuel $180.50 CAN

January Grocery $218.62 CAN

January Overnight costs $100.86 CAN