Days 126 Through 129: Palenque

Palenque is a town that was born because of the many tourist attractions nearby.  It's not particularly pretty.  The city is a perfect grid, with a decidedly functional center and an attractive leafy green tourist corridor called El Cañada just off the main road.  After our sleepless night in the hippie party haven of El Panchan, we decided to head into town and find the cheapest air conditioned room we could find.  That ended up being at the one hostal in town, Hostal Yaxkin, which has proven to be a good home for the last couple of days, and has allowed us to comfortably visit all of the various attractions this area has to offer.  That is, lots of Mayan ruins, jungle, and waterfalls.

Obligatory Palenque ruins photo... this was by far one of my least favorite sites because of the crowds, but of course, it cannot be missed.

A rare quiet and empty moment in one corner of the Palenque ruins.

We found a friend hiding in one of the ruins.

Jungle waterfall at Palenque provides a cool respite from the sun.

After a glorious night sleeping in an air-conditioned room for the first time since Baja California, we headed out for a day of waterfalls and more waterfalls at Agua Azul and Misol-Ha.  While most folks do this on a tour, we wanted to be able to sleep in and do things on our own time, so we cobbled together our trip on the public transport, and most importantly, we were able to make a stop at the carnitas taco stand we fell in love with on our way in from Ocosingo, located right at the military checkpoint before town.

During the dry season, these waterfalls are blue... but since its the rainy season, they are brown.  They are still pretty powerful, though.

If you have the patience to hike past all of the touristy restaurants and souvenir stalls, you reach lovely streams like this one, which show what the water must look like the other times of year.

My new buddy!

There are two fee booths as you enter Misol-Ha... I appreciated the fact that the second fee both apologizes for the first fee booth and at least pretends to give you a discount for it.

Misol-Ha is impressive during the rainy season... double water flow makes for a powerful waterfall.  And an itty bitty rainbow.  It's also 500 times less touristy than Misol-Ha and has a much nicer swim area and some nice cabañas.

It was pretty awesome (and refreshing) to go under the waterfall.

Oooh...

Gonzalo heads through mini-waterfalls cascading down the stairs to a cave... unfortunately, during the rainy season, it's too dangerous to get to the cave.

While I am normally not the package tour kind o' gal, sometimes time constraints force me to take one lest I never see a particular attraction.  For that reason, Gonzalo and I found ourselves on an epic day tour to the remote archeological sites of Yaxchilan and Bonampak, located 150 km and a boat ride away from Palenque.  For the record, it was absolutely worth it.  These sites are nestled in the middle of the jungle and are much less visited than mega-ruins like Palenque, which allow you to peacefully explore the grounds.

There is something kind of awesome about having to take a 20 minute boat ride to arrive to an archeological site.

Yaxchilan, a jungle paradise.

Like every other Mayan ruins, there are a bazillion stairs.

Lil Mayan building nestled in the jungle.

When I say jungle, I mean it.  These howler monkeys provided our soundtrack for our visit.  Holy crap are they loud.

Yaxchilan also requires a little jungle hiking.

Bonampak is always part of the package.  There's not much impressive about it in terms of architecture.  Kind of looks like all the other Mayan ruins.

EXCEPT... Bonampak boasts a series of ancient paintings in remarkable condition with all of the original colors in tact.  This was a first for me as the paint is faded or non-existent most other sites.

A few travel notes for cyclists:

• Hostal Yaxkin is a great option in Palenque town located at the end of the tourist strip of El Cañada just before the bridge to the town center.  It is spacious and clean, boasts a shared kitchen, great common area, and draws in just enough lovely jungle feel in its landscaping that you don't feel you've sold out too much by staying in town.  There is plenty of space for your bikes and the air-conditioned dorm was just 20 pesos more than the dorms with fans.  It's never really that busy, we had the room to ourselves for half the time, and it's a great place to connect with other travelers.  The tour company that is affiliated with the hostal also did an excellent job, no hidden fees, and the two meals provided were stellar.

• If you decide you don't want to bike the alternate route between Ocosingo and Palenque and want to brave the main road, I highly recommend you try to stay at Misol-Ha rather than Agua Azul if you are not a strong enough cyclist to make the 120 km ride in a single day.  Misol-Ha has nice cabañas and might even have camping, and looks to be much more tranquil and beautiful in my opinion.  Agua Azul looks like one huge tourist trap.

• Speaking of the main road, be prepared for a shitaculous amount of speed bumps, and little old ladies and kids holding up ropes across the road to stop cars so they can sell you whatever it is they have to sell.  Be prepared to be mobbed with plastic bags of corn, tamales, and fruit.  

• For those continuing onto Guatemala, do consider doing the border crossing at Frontera Corozal... the same boats that took us to the ruins at Yaxchilan also will take you to Bethel, Guatemala.  Border crossing formalities should be taken care of at the tiny immigration offices in each respective town.