Palenque, Chiapas

The bus ride to Palenque was over 6 hours, which was a little longer than expected. San Cristóbal and Palenque are only 142 miles apart, but the road was continuous curves and mountains and speed bumps, so apparently it takes a really long time. That’s another difference between Mexico and the US – there are speed bumps EVERYWHERE here. Highways, subdivisions, everywhere. They have to be doing some serious damage to the cars here.
Anyway, we got to our hotel and settled in for the night, as it was already 10:30. (We booked a hotel because all of the hostels were full. This worked out well, as we were ready for our own bathroom again. Also, we were thankful to be in a hotel because we had air conditioning, which turned out to be quite a blessing in Palenque!) I was also grateful because the shower here was as amazing as the shower in Puebla.
Tuesday we ate in our hotel and went on a tour at 12 to go see Misol-Ha and Auga Azul, two cascades. Misol-Ha is 12 miles from Palenque, and Agua Azul is 42 miles away. They’re basically on the way from San Cristóbal to Palenque. We were only given 30 minutes at Misol-Ha, but this was almost enough. It basically consists of one main waterfall which is about 30 meters (98 feet) tall. There was a neat little cave too, but there wasn’t enough time for a tour of it.

We got a little thirsty:

Agua Azul was absolutely gorgeous.
Here's a picture I found online:

It got it’s name for the intense aqua color, which comes from the high mineral content. After a quick lunch when we first arrived, we were off. There were just so many parts to it, it was amazing! The bigger cascades are as big as 6 meters (20 feet) tall. We climbed all around taking pictures and then went for a swim.






We came back to the hotel, ate dinner and ate dinner at a restaurant across the street.
Wednesday we went to the ruins, which is the main and pretty much the only attraction in Palenque. We started to wander around by ourselves, getting offers for guides every other minute. After a few buildings, we decided to go back and get a guide. The site was a lot bigger than I had thought, and it was a lot hotter than I had thought. Later in the day, my thermometer said over 100 degrees, but who knows.
At the top of one of the ruins, overlooking the palace:


Anyway, after our tour was over, we bought some water and then wandered just a little in the jungle.


We then walked through some of the ruins that are back in the jungle. (This is where most of the ruins are, actually, but apparently the archeologists aren’t going to uncover any more, as they don’t want to ruin the jungle. Personally I wouldn’t uncover any more of it just because it’s so hot!) The path through the jungle goes past some little waterfalls and goes on to the museum, which was quite small.

After heading back to the hotel/restaurant area in which we were staying, we ate some lunch and picked up our stuff and were on our way to the bus station to catch the 5:30 bus to Villahermosa. The bus was full, so we had to wait for the 7:00 bus. We were actually quite lucky, as this was the first time this had happened to us. Also, we met some people from Germany who had to wait for an 11:00 bus, so it really wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, the bus station is not an enclosed station, so it was ridiculously hot…this is when my thermometer said over 100 degrees. We talked with some other people from Germany and waited. We saw a few people that we had seen on some of our tours in San Cristóbal.
New Food: Pozol – a drink basically made from corn and cocoa. Mi padre told me to try it, so I did. It had a really chunky texture, which I wasn’t to keen on, but the taste itself was good.
Pictures: Palenque