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Tuesday, May 24
The drive to Palenque starts with an hour of good curvy road that takes you through Villahermosa, Tobasco and into Chiapas. We booked a night at “The Burnt Hotel”, otherwise known as Villas Kin Ha. It’s actually a few miles outside of Palenque on the road towards the ruins. We call it the burnt hotel because, well, its burnt. Not all of it. A significant portion was struck by lightning several years ago and they have taken their sweet time to getting around to fixing everything. Lightning and palapas don’t play well together. Be that as it may, the unburnt portion is nestled nicely into the jungle. Its serene and relaxing. It’s also quite large and everything is a single-story building. There are a few other guests here, but you have to go out of your way to find them.
We spent a fair amount of time in the pool just outside our cabaña, just floating around and searching for Macaws in the trees.
Just across the road, also tucked back into the jungle, is where we had dinner. Sharon doesn’t do fish but she actually enjoyed a refreshing ceviche. Very fancy. Then we ordered a fantastic type of fondue with wild boar, deer and turkey. Sustainable jungle critters and wine. Eat, drink and feel good about the planet!
Wednesday, May 25
Can you make coffee using fizzy water? Sharon did. I never listened in chemistry class, or maybe that was covered in Home Ec (which I didn’t take) but fizzy water makes a pretty good cup of coffee. I was expecting something along the line of “pop” rocks but it was not to be.
We drove into the heart of Palenque for a little walking around windowless shopping. This didn’t last all that long so we returned to the burnt hotel for a boredom nap. We’re not really bored, just jaded from our vacationing selves trying to not appear like we’re having a great time.
Repeat the previous day. We took another afternoon swim and spent an extensive amount of time playing with an alliteration having to do with “a parody of a pair of parrots, apparently.” There may have been drinking. Same jungle restaurant and top it off by a serenade from howler monkeys in the tree tops next to the restaurant.
Thursday, May 26
Off to Xpujil (shpoo HEAL) and the Biosphere reserve of Calakmul. That means four and a half hours of rough road that crosses some seriously wide rivers. Xpujil is tiny. Our hotel was tiny. The price was tiny. The people are tiny. I wouldn’t be surprised if Xpujil is Mayan for tiny. We rested up from our bumpy drive then headed back out of tiny town to Zotz Cave.
The directions were “Drive down the road till you see a sign with a bat on it then turn down the next dirt road.” Sounded sketchy, right? So we did it. We wanted to see the second largest (supposedly) colony of bats that come out at sunset. Further instructions were to get there an hour early because they only allow 15 people in to watch. We did as told and waited in the car for more than an hour for the bat spectacular.
45 people later… we were guided to a deep sink hole on the side of a fairly steep hill with thick growth all around. Its very cloudy so sunset was assumed, not witnessed. Suddenly there was a tornado of bats rising out of the deep hole, flapping about like a dorky kid’s first time in the deep end of a swimming pool. Millions of dorky kids crowding each other in a confined space.
If you are a dorky kid that is challenged by water, I apologize. But you swim like an out-of-control bat.
Friday, May 27
We got up at a respectable hour, topped off the car with gas and headed into the biosphere. We’re going 40 miles south, into the jungle near the border with Guatemala. These 40 miles will take 2 hours due to the road being in three phases: good then poor then treacherous. On the treacherous part I managed to shatter the upper right corner of my wind shield.
Calakmul has two of the tallest Mayan structures in a widespread ancient city. It was populated from around 500 BC to 1500 AD and is similar to Tical to its south in Guatemala. We showed off our climbing skills in front of tourists half our age while we silently groaned and grunted to the top of a structure.
The highlight was a group of spider monkeys that played and swung from tree to tree, seeming to follow us on our trek back to the car.
It was about 8 o’clock in the evening when the power went out at the hotel. The very tiny hotel. There was a knock at the door where the night keeper was waiting with lit candles for our convenience. I looked behind him and notice the power outage was actually for the entire town. No worries. The day’s events made for an easy nights sleep.
jump on you like a howler spider monkey
Great travelogue….totally professional without taking yourselves too serious; love it! Definitely gave me the travel bug that still is dormant but will one day rise up Batman! Thanks y’all…take care and see you upon return.