Palenque : Yaxchilan & Bonampak

After yesterday's waterfall excursion, we woke up at 5.30 today for a more cultural tour. Well, I woke up at 5.30, had a shower and then rolled Nicky out of bed. We left the hotel at the ungodly hour of 6 in the morning, and got onto a minibus with an Argentinian girl with massive ears. Massive ears. After driving round here, there and everywhere picking folk up, we finally set off for Yaxchilan, which turned out to be about 3 hours away. Luckily, the air conditioning on this bus had been in action all the while, so it wasn't as unbearably hot as normal.

It turned out that most of the people on the bus were going to Guatemala, so we waved goodbye to them as they readied their passports and visas, thankful that we didn't have to do the same. We carried on about 30 yards down the road to the river. The Yaxchilan ruins are only accessible by boat, and so soon the 7 of us remaining bundled into a little wooden motorboat for our 40 minute ride down-river. The ride was pretty uninteresting, no thrills and spills, which was good for me since I don't like boats at the best of times, and we soon arrived to the island with the ruins.

After getting off, and being sternly told that if we were late they'd leave without us, Nicky and I set about looking for ruins. Signs pointed us either straight on to the main site, or up a hill to a smaller site. We decided to check out the smaller one first, since it was closer, and so we set off up the hill. Suddenly there was an unnerving, Jurassic Park-esque roar from the jungle above us. Whilst clearly this wasn't going to be anything threatening (it turned out to be Howler Monkeys), it was still strangely chilling. However, with a few words of encouragement from Nicky – “It can't be dinosaurs, we'll be alright” – we set off up the hill. The ruins were undeniably impressive. They weren't as well preserved as Monte Albán, but the rainforest setting made them seem much more real somehow, it was easier to imagine a society living here, out of contact with the rest of the world.

At the main site the ruins were much bigger, and we started climbing the biggest one. In the heat and humidity of the rainforest this took a lot out of us, and we ended up spending fifteen minutes at the top drinking lots of water and admiring the view. We were finished before time – there's only so much you can do with ruins – and we got back on the boat after chatting to some Brazilians who were also waiting. Once we arrived back, it was lunch time, a very Anglo-American affair of steak and chips, to which Nicky and I are now far from accustomed.

The next ruins were fairly close, and whilst not as impressive in their size, they had some huge 'steles' – large, thin rocks with carved pictures on them – and some very old paintings that still survive un-retouched to this day. After once more reaching the top and stopping for half an hour, we were on our way back, in a much hotter bus to the hotel. It was hamburgers tonight, and compared to our usual standard they were distinctly below par. After asking for 'everything' they didn't put cheese on, and wouldn't give it to us to put on ourselves. Nicky was very unimpressed (“people here are stupid”), but we found a new, much better place for our second round, and after watching some terrible american TV we retired to bed at about ten. We had woken up at five this morning, after all.

Related posts:

1. Palenque : Ruins
2. Tulum – Chitchen Itza
3. Palenque : Waterfalls
4. Hotel – El Tajin – Puebla Mexico D.F
5. Bon Voyage