Our last ride dropped us off at a road heading towards a Maya village, in the middle of nowhere, on a curvy section of the road which made it difficult to catch the next ride. As we were waiting several Mayan girls and women in there flower dresses peered out of the jungle to see us sitting at the side of the road. As soon as we would look at them they scattered into the vegetation, then came creeping back as we looked away. They kept staring and scurrying and giggling away for about a half hour. Eventually a young man from the community came out to see what was going on and I was able to talk with him for a little bit. he spoke Spanish pretty well, but the rest of his community mostly spoke a Mayan dialect. It was getting late and after talking for a little bit he invited us to stay with his family if we couldn't find a ride. I had a tent so we would be able to put it up the yard if we couldn't catch a ride. Soon it was getting dark and we decided to take him up on the offer.
We spent the next part of the evening on the porch with the family. I would say something in Spanish then our new friend would translate it to the Mayan dialect for the rest of his family. They would then say something that he would translate to Spanish that I would then translate to English for Carina. It was a fun experience. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of our time there. Indigenous folks in this part of the world are pretty skittish about the whole idea so I didn't push it. It was a rough nights sleep hearing all of the chicken scratching around, then hearing the roosters well before the dawn. We were up about 5 the next morning and on the road again at sunrise. It was a beautiful last leg of our journey admiring the sea of clouds that sat between the mountain peaks below us.
We made it to the town of Palenque early, had some breakfast, sent an email to the rest of the group, and made our way out of the not-so-charming town of Palenque, heading towards the jungle outpost of Panchan, on the road to the Palenque ruins.
Panchan was a beautifully lush, hot and steamy jungle paradise at the edge of Palenque National Park. There Carina and I met the rest of the UK group and they all went to see the ruins that day since they were leaving that night. I fell asleep in my jungle cabana and decided to see the ruins the next day. I stayed in Panchan a few days enjoying my little cabana with a back porch looking out over a little stream.
Panchan was a pretty socialable place and I ended up meeting some other travelers and going out with them at night. It was also a pretty hippy place so there was plenty of drumming and fire spinning.
The next day I went to visit the Palenque ruins with a couple of travelers that were staying at the Jungle palace, Suzie from New Zealand and Elya from Israel. The ruins were a beautiful sight surrounded by a dense jungle landscape. Walking there we could hear the husky voices of howler monkeys in the jungle.
Once we spent a few hours at the ruins we decided to leave the park to get something to eat and take a dip in one of the many waterfalls in the area. The jungle was so beautiful and the water cool enough to be refreshing.
After our refreshing dip we continued down the road and saw that there was another set of smaller ruins surrounded by more waterfalls. We went back through the park and had another beautiful walk. We finished our trip to the ruins with a visit to the museum.
That night and the next day were pretty relaxing. In the evening there were plenty of festivities and the next day after some errands in the town of Palenque we spent the afternoon cooling off, talking and reading in the little stream outside of our cabanas.
Candle light through empty beer bottle
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