Day 10 – All the Way to Palenque

I realise this picture looks weird because I am not in it. Mea culpa. Desculpe. Apologies. Sorry. Not sorry.

Today I ditched the tour group for a planned Indiana Jo independent side adventure to Palenque, a town in Chiapas that still retains its gritty frontier edge. It’s not like the other towns with the nice colonial buildings. This one is all about the neighbouring Palenque ruins which are awesome but, much to your surprise, not why I was there!

Since I was a kid, I had dreamed of seeing the wondrous colourful murals of Bonampak, a Mayan ruin a few hours from Palenque. There was no way to squeeze it into the Intrepid itinerary. However, I have a friend on the inside …

I was previously here in 2017 when I met Francisco, one of the tour guides at the Palenque ruins. As I have such an interest in Mayan history and archaeology, we have kept in touch via WhatsApp. He is now my mate and I knew he could help me set up a side trip. So he did. He booked me a spot on a two day adventure to the Yaxchilan Mayan ruins, the Bonampak murals, an overnight stay in the Lacondan jungle, a 4 hour jungle trek and then transport back to Palenque where the Intrepid group was scheduled to arrive on the planned itinerary. It just meant I would miss three days in San Cristobal de las Casas but I had already been there. Lovely but I had seen it. So I booked a bus, a hotel for one night, signed a waiver and hit the road!!!

The only downer was the bus to Palenque was three hours after the 13 hour night bus arrived. It was a 9 hour journey. Ugh!

However, I used those three hours in a resourceful, MacGyver-like fashion. I showered at the Intrepid hotel, breakfasted, walked up the main drag, outsourced the purchasing of presents for my nieces, bought a cool drink bottle with a Mexican logo that made it look like Starbucks that I have since been using in hotels that have not been providing glasses. For brushing my teeth etc. TMI?

After leaving the precious rug and some of my other luggage with Tanya, I taxied you the bus station and got on the correct bus! Success!!! Celebrate the small wins!

The 9 hours flew by, largely because I wrote blog entries. I have no classy pictures of truck stops for you. We stopped at a few stations to pick up other passengers, leaving about 10 minutes or so for a quick lunch run reminiscent of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer leaps off the subway car to grab a gyro. For me, it was a Subway and a coffee. No, don’t toast it you fool!!!! The only incident of note was refuelling at Villahermosa when we were forced to get off the bus on one side and the bus drove around the other side of the station without me realising. Another kind passenger raced off to grab me just before it left.

When I arrived, Francisco picked me up from the bus station to go to the tour agency to pay. Then we went for world-class Chiapas coffee. Chiapas is the Mexican State most famous for coffee – no nasty dishwater here. I had two. Francisco went for a tomale run, buying 6 and insisting I eat 4 to try all the flavours. So delicious. One was called a Chapateco, like a local from Chiapas. Pork, chicken, a green leaf like spinach, and I think I ate another chicken. Seemed rude to bust out the camera here so no photos.

We talked for ages about Palenque, the ruins, Mexico, my trip. All sorts. It was a great night on the street. He then drove me to my hotel where I quickly sorted my luggage to take only the necessaries for two days and he took my main rucksack to watch for two days rather than me lugging that through the jungle. The hotel itself was pretty nice by the look of it, although I didn’t get to experience any of it.

Apologies for a very boring post but it was not exactly a thrilling day!

More soon ..