Palenque

After a an extremely hot night in the jungle (temperature wise!), we got up early to go to our main destination, the ruined Mayan city of Palenque.  We got there early enough that it was not sweltering yet, and we even found a free parking spot!  A local offered to wash and then "watch" our car for a small fee, which we passed on. In my best Spanish I told the guy that it was just a rental, so we really didn't care about it! That seemed to be a good enough answer for him... 

I was pretty sure the car would be gone when we came back, but anyway....

  After making our way through the hoards of unwashed hippies who congregate at places like this (no offense to anyone, but it is true), we walked through the gate and into the park.

Palenque, yet another piece of the Cultural Patrimony of Humanity.

Upon entering, we immediately found ourselves in downtown Mayan Palenque.

More buildings in the distance.  That foggy stuff is not smog, as we are accustomed to in el DF, but it is in fact pristine jungle steam.  It wasn't 120 out yet, but it was easily in the low 90s, and warming quickly.

We climbed the first building we came to, and posed for quick shot.  This would be the first of thousands of stairs we climbed this day.

A shot of the way down...steep stone stairs, as found at every Mesoamerican ruin site...at least in Mexico.

Here we have el Sr. Lizard taking in the ruins too!

We couldn't climb this one, but it is stunning against the jungle backdrop, no?

This was probably the coolest part about Palenque.  The art!!!  It's so interesting!!  Last winter I had the awesome opportunity to visit Tikal in Guatemala.  Many say those are the most impressive Mayan ruins in existence, and yes they were really cool.  Tikal is a huge site with huge pyramids, etc...but what Tikal does not have a lot of (that I remember) is art.  I really enjoyed seeing all of the carvings everywhere...it really added to the ambiance.

This was inside the Palace maze.  Another cool thing about Palenque is that they let you climb the ruins *and* go inside.  We kept thinking about what it was like to live in this city...how did they survive the heat?  Were their quads made of steel with all these stairs?  So much to ponder...

A view up the hill from the Palace.

The cross was a powerful symbol in Mayan art.  They believed they existed in the place where the Heavens met the Underworld, and they symbolized that with the cross shape.  Pretty interesting stuff for someone with a religion degree.  :)

This is a relief of the ruler (left) carting around his prisoners (the rest of the guys) on a classic Mexican "perp-walk," just like they do on the morning news here!  

It was inside the special space of the Palace where the ruler entertained foreign dignitaries and other VIPs.  Some of the best art was displayed here.  This concept still exists in the modern diplomatic corps...dress up the representational space in the coolest art you have, then invite your contacts over for a party.  I guess some things are eternal!

This was their aqueduct. Neat.

This is the phonetic Mayan syllabary.  There are over 800 symbol combinations representing different syllables. Thanks UW linguistics class! Fascinating and pretty to look at. 

This one says, "To avoid injury, no running or jumping on the pyramids" uhh...or something!

Though the ruins were the main attraction, the jungle was a close second. 

View of the Palace and beyond from on top of the tallest pyramid in the complex.

They could see their enemigos coming from miles away!

Of course, it wouldn't be a Mesoamerican ruin site without a ball court!  The center part seems narrower than other ball courts we've seen.  Maybe they were skinnier than your average death-sport participants. More research is definitely needed.

After wandering through the main part of the ruins, we followed a path down a steep hill / torturous set of stairs and into the jungle on a journey to find secret jungle ruins.  I guess they are not entirely secret, judging from the perfect preservation and the handicap-accessible path, but not a whole lot of people bothered to come down to this part, so it was very quiet, jungley and a bit spooky...exactly what we were looking for!

Secrets....

We thought we heard more Mexican Aardvarks in the trees, but maybe it was just enormous iguanas...you be the judge!

Exotic tropical jungle-scape.

More hidden temples...

and more STAIRS!!!

Jungle-ified tree.

Aggghhh!

And finally we reached the end of the jungle path...only to be met with these hundred million stairs running straight up this very steep hill.  Our legs will make us pay for this...don't worry.

Yet another guy with a fancy headdress and fabulous accessories!

He looks a little terrified or pissed off if you ask me!

Still smiling after all those stairs!  Cheers!

A last look at "downtown."

Is that a mountain or is that a yet undiscovered enormous pyramid??

Jungle flower.

And we're back in modern Mexico.  I browsed every single craparia here, and even bought a new runner for my dining room table.  History and souvenir fun!

 The monster shaped object on the right used to be a telephone pole...until the jungle came for it!!