Palenque - Chiapas Region

The town of Palenque exists for one reason, the ancient ruins also known as Palenque, home to a large group of Maya led by a King called Pacal. The town itself is a modern creation and exisits to support the tourist trade. The region of Chiapas is the poorest in Mexico so the attraction of the town is great and allows locals to access the tourist dollar.

The ruins themselves are about 20 minutes away by bus/taxi. We left our Hostal (Yaxkin) about 0800 and were there before the bus loads of touristas.
The route thro' the ruinas is paved and grassed and the buildings themselves have not been overly restored so you can still picture them as a newly discovered site. There are teams of men working on the site removing encroaching vegetation, and there is some restoration work going on, though not to make it look like new. The  complex was started about 100 BC and abandoned in 900AD. The small museum just off site houses the remians of any plaster and paintwork that the jungle had not reclaimed, and some amazing pottery figure work. These people worshipped the underworld and heavens and used astronomical observation to plan crop cycles. They had a concept of the roundness of the earth and the precise number of days in the earth's orbit around the sun, and more amazingly a realisation that the earth spun on its axis and that this axis rotated to a 25000 year cycle. They did this without the invention of the wheel or the use of metal?
There are 25 temples and the main palace, all of impressive scale and at least 30 metres in height, of course there are trinket sellers, but unlike other countries a courteous no gracias does not lead to a battle to get away.

The grounds also had some intereating wildlife too.

spot the lizard...

Mariposa muy bonita,,,,,

This monkey was the size of Siobhan's hand....and if you think that is frightening then look away because of the next hideous creature of the jungle.................

Aaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhh.......

We also visited Misol Ha Waterfall and the Cascades of Agua Azul, both tourist spots, but no less beautiful for being so. The waterfall was 90 metres high and you could walk behind the falls - nice and cool in the spray. Agua Azul has a series of seven cascades beautiful blue water and fountains of spray. Off to Guatemala tomorrow early start ( 0600 grrrr) guess what to see some more ruinas de maya. Hasta pronto chicos