The ruins of Palenque
Apart from exploring Central America by ourselves and generally relaxing (yes, believe it or not), one of the key reasons for coming here was to carry on our love affair with ancient civilisations. Em might disagree here and say it was my love affair and that I’m an ancient civilisation……
Before viewing the handy work of the Incas in South America this time last year, we were in Mexico at the end of 2003 and had a wonderful time in the Yucatan exploring the Mayan civilisation’s mark on the world at places such as Edzna, Uxmal, Sayil and Labna.
The Mayan civilisation extended across a large swathe of what is now Central America, from Nortern Mexico down through Guatemala, Honduras and Belize and into the “neck” of this part of the world that doesnīt quite know which continent it’s really in. And Palenque is “one of those sites” that must we seen if the various jigsaw puzzle pieces of a civilisation that existed for over two millennia are to begin to fit together. So, after a night in a bed which was harder than the floor it was standing on, we jumped a cab early doors and headed out of town towards the foothills and the ruins, five miles away.
The first thing we noticed with Palenque is its position, perched around 100 metres above the vast plain to the north of the site which extends, virtually flat as a pancake, all the way to the Caribbean and, of course, the sites we visited two years ago. This gives it an edge (literally!), in that the views are “awesome” as our intercontinental friends would exclaim with large whoops and other such non descript words. (To be fair, there weren’t that many of them around, not that we encountered anyhows).
Entering the site, three large temples on the right immediately dominate the plaza in front of them. Immaculate limestone stonework, sheer and stark against the bright blue sky, marches upwards in the shape of pyramids built to worship the Gods and conduct other, less amiable matters such as ritual blood letting. Nice!! At the top of each pyramid-come-temple are rooms, usually sub divided in a row of two areas with a connecting door. These were residencies for the great and the good of the Maya world in general, while some times they were used simply for addressing the throngs gathered on the giant plaza below….or for slitting some unfortunate soulīs throat, either as an offering to the Gods or because the person was an enemy.
Now, at sites like Uxmal, there was a slight problem with these rooms if you ventured into the dank darkness, since before your eyes could become accustomed to the vaulted roof and smooth albasta walls your nostrils were assailed with the most vengeful stench of…..bat piss. Putrid, acidic, clagging in the back of your throat until the need to retch, release or run became too much. Get the picture?? We’re pleased to report that the bats at Palenque are plesant critters, who, while still hanging upside down and making the occasional squeak just to make you wary, appear not to have the type of problems that sites further north offer the unsuspecting tomb raider.
With the temples to our right, the Grand Palace rose in front of us on the other side of the Plaza: so many steps to climb, where does one start? I scampered up the first temple’s stairs and again wondered why the Mayan civilisation, noted for their shortness of stature, built such huge steps. Ginormous blocks of limestone intricately pieced together to create the grandest of escalators to the heavens. Blimey, the knees are squeaking already and we’ve only just begun!
Well, to be precise, I’d only just begun. Em felt sick and chose a quiet perch beneath a beautiful single tree that today graces the plaza, offering her shade while I sweated it up 40-odd steps to the room at the top. Down again and onto the next, and so on and so on, with Em joining me for one trip up the great steps of one temple, to delve deep inside the structure and find a hidden room in which lay the empty sarcophogous of the Red Queen, so called because of the artefacts found around the body of a noble woman laid to rest here so many moons ago.
What also makes Palenque different to the sites to the north in Mexico’s Yucatan is the cascading stream that pours gracefully through the site and which provided the Maya with the all essential ingredient of life. The sites in the Yucatan, based as they are on a limestone plain, are notable for their absence of a single river for a tremendous distance. Instead, here there are hidden underground lakes deep within the limestone strata, called Cenotes, from which the Maya extracted the water they needed in many an ingenious way. (This was also their route to the underworld, but that’s a different story).
The stream brought a freshness to an increasingly hot and humid site, which while perched in the foothills and therefore afforded a breeze, was still firmly in the jungle, as evidenced by the giant trees, lianas and creepy crawlies that encroached wherever one looked away from the central attractions.
Yet more temple climbing for me, while Em still felt unwell and perused her book from the lush grass of terra firma. In my quest for hidden treasure I failed, but still managed from time to time to overhear comments and tag along furtively with the numerous tour groups who were now established on their circuit of the ruins, led by a variety of guides with a variety of ways of keeping their charges under constant supervision. One comment particularly made me smile, when a guide leading a bunch of yanks around the top of the Grand Palace was asked whether he was an archeologist by profession. “No”, he replied, explaining that he simply read a lot and was genuinely interested. He followed this up with the comment “I prefer this work to shovelling shit for a living”, which, judging by the loud guffaws that came from his ensemble ensured he’d receive a healthy wad of green backs for his humour.
We’d been at the site since it opened at 8am, and a good three hours later we were about ready to call it a day. The ruins that we’d seen covered a mere 2 square miles, a tiny fraction of the original site occupied up until around the 12th century by this mysterious and dynamic culture. The mounds of earth that still remain uncovered may hold many more secrets that, in time, will perhaps be found. For ourselves, it was time to visit the excellent museum on site, where many of the treasures uncovered to date are carefully displayed and interpretted. With an afternoon “off”, the not so clean pool of the Hotel Casa Inn beckoned, or at least the pool side did.
Tags: Mexico
mihai