Palenque

Friday night we, along with our housemate Sarah and her two friends, took a 6-hour bus ride to the northeast part of Chiapas to visit ancient Mayan ruins. The civilization in Palenque flourished from AD 630-740 and many of the buildings are fairly intact. It was an awesome sight to see and fun to imagine the city once busy and colorful. We also loved being in the jungle and seeing new types of trees, vines, and fruit. The climate is also quite tropical including powerful rains. One on the downpours occurred as we were walking to our campground from the park. Needless to say, our cloths stayed wet through the next day and smelled pretty bad. As we were exploring we also heard some perplexing noises in the jungle. It sounded like gorillas fighting but a local boy told us they were just harmless monkeys in the trees. Another highlight from the trip was the “huts” we rented. They were on stilts so we would be safe from tigers, at least that’s what the owner told us.
By the way, to see any of the pictures a bit bigger, just click on it. Some of them are worth a closer look!