Palenque

  Palenque, Mexico
Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Palenque

Click here to view what Palenque is.

So, we left the lovely San Cristobal and after a horrendous bus journey that did nothing but wind around mountains we made it to the town of Palenque. The "Holy Planet" guidebook called it a "hot sweaty town", and that is EXACTLY what it is.

We found ourselves some reasonable lodging, reasonable as possible for 150 pesos, about 11 Euro. We then went for food.... and thus the story begins....
We looked at the menu, all in Spanish of course, but no bother to Mike, the cunning linguist! We both decided upon getting something plain, due to the long day that was planned for the following day. We both got the same, Pollo con papas fritas, in english for you non speakers... thatīd be plain old Chicken and Chips. We were waiting for about 30 minutes... but we soon found out why!!!!

Out came our plates of food, we had asked for Chicken and Chips and we got an entrire chicken each and a few measley chips. Obviously, the length of time we were waiting, was the length of time that the chef was out back trying to catch the little critters. The chicken was then decapitated and got his feet taken off before being bunged into the deep fat fryer. It was an UNBELIEVEABLE sight... we both polished the entire chickens off!

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We also saw our frist Cucaracha... cockroach in a place today... not bad, considering we weīre away for nearly a month now.
We booked our ticket from Palenque to Merida to leave the next evening, another night bus.

We went to the ruins of Palenque in the early afternoon, they were brilliant. We took our time wandering around, didnīt bother with a guide, even though we were pestered by young fellas... "jungle tour?", "wanna see monkeys?". The ruins were really awesome, set in the middle of the jungle, some of the ruins are still partially covered. We passed upon waterfalls also, which is where the sign "NO BANARSE" was spotted (see the pics for the full story).

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It took us about 4 hours to wander around the entire ruins. We caught the local bus back into the town. We decided to go for a bit of western food for our grub... Burger King it was!!!! However, this was not like the one on Patrick Street, the young one out the back was putting all the burgers together by hand, no gloves! Luckily, we survived and didnīt suffer any side effects.

Our bus for Merida, at the top of the Yucatan Peninsula left Palenque at 9pm... due to arrive in Merida at 5am, yup... FIVE IN THE MORNING !!!!!