Chapter One: Palenque

Well, we went on our big spring vacation. In early February. We love the Mexican seasons! And now brace yourselves for the first-ever DF Days multi-post blitz...

Our destination was Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, with what we were to discover is a hugely varied landscape ranging from misty piney highlands to dense jungles and open rolling ranchland. It was all gorgeous, and we had a terrific trip. We've pulled together some of the highlights, starting with our trip to Palenque, the Mayan Ruins in eastern Chiapas.

The trip started with an hour and a half flight from Mexico City to Tuxtla Gutierrez, the state capital. We had a long day's drive ahead of us so we didn't dilly-dally in the city at all (well, there were the usual delays at the rental car place) but got into our teeny-tiny Dodge and hit the road.

Sergio did a heroic amount of driving on this trip.

Note the burgeoning trucker tan.

Sasha has managed to avoid sitting behind the wheel of a standard-shift car since she was 15 and had a nervous breakdown witnessed only by her completely patient mother and a rustbucket Subaru. So that meant Sergio did ALL the driving on this trip. And there was a lot. From the airport to Palenque was only about 150 miles, but this took about 5 hours. It was a steady climb up to San Cristobal and then back down the other side to the jungle, all along curvy narrow roads. There wasn't much traffic to contend with, though, which was a welcome change from D.F. Great stretches of highway would pass without anyone other than "collectivo" buses and us on the roads. The buses in Chiapas are usually tricked-out Toyota pick-ups, with a dozen or so folks riding on benches in the bed of the truck.

Seriously, this is carrying people, not cattle.

We pulled into Palenque around dinner time, and found our lodging for the night on the Hippie Highway outside of the Ruins. We ended up in a little palapa of our own after we blew the fuses in our original room by plugging in the floor fan. Nice one!

Armed with the same Lonely Planet guidebook as all the other gringos in Palenque-town, we headed out for the night to the reportedly infamous Don Mucho's,the bar and restaurant in the"alternative" jungle village/campground/hotel called El Panchan which was basically next door to our own little shangri-la.

Not pictured: scores of filthy hippies.

So we scooted over to the very busy restaurant crowded with at least 100 tables full of vacationers of all stripes (though vacationers with dreadlocks seemed to be rather over-represented). After killing some time perusing the magical necklaces on offer while we waited for our table, we sat down for some truly excellent pizza delivered by a truly terrible wait staff. The charm of this travelers' village was probably lost on us a little bit because we were so damn hungry. But once we got fed, we shook off a little of our uptight ways and enjoyed watching the cumbia-ish band and the Phish concert style shenanigans on the dance floor. Pretty beat from the drive, we skipped the fire dance performers and happily rolled back home to the cottage just in time to catch a giant furry spider in the bathroom and a stray cat milling around on the porch. Not a peep from any howler monkeys though...

We wish.

We woke up early the next morning and managed to be among the first in the park at Palenque. Now Sasha will readily admit that she's basically reached her saturation point with walking around ruinas and climbing on top of pyramids. It all gets a little "Unsolved Mysteries" for her taste. But Palenque, even for her, was something special.


Mayan ruins in the middle of the jungle really can't be beat. Sorry Aztecs.

We were just early enough to beat the crowds, and it was truly a stunning place. The ruins seem to grow right out of the middle of the jungle, with dozens of white stone structures surrounded by lush forest and a running stream.



One of the neatest things: we actually got to walk inside some of the buildings -- a Mexican ruins first for us.

Fun with the "Manual" setting.

We are convinced that all little kids who visit these places must immediately decide to become archaeologists when they grow up.

Sasha has been hot to see toucan birds (and the above mentioned monkeys) ever since she came to Mexico. We took a nice long walk through the surrounding jungle, but had no luck with our amateur birdwatching, and quickly learned that our only surefire shot at seeing the wildlife we had in mind was to arrange a day long expedition into the jungle with a guide. A day we didn't have. Still we saw some pretty cool trees and waterfalls.



And for the final bit of Palenque magic---when we got back to the car, it turned out our parking was free! (The shiftless self-appointed parking attendant was asleep on the job). And we found out that the drive ahead of us would be only 4 hours, not the 7 we were nervously anticipating. So we loaded up on water and candy bars and got back on the long and winding road...