palenque and yaxchilan

from campeche i had a easy 5 hour busride to palenque. palenque is in the next state, more south west - its called chiapas. in chiapas there is more water (rain and rivers), and therefore its more green than yucatan (merida). and since it is a bit higher than the sea level, its more cold...which isboth really nice!
i found a good place to stay, and spent my time walking through the town. its quite nice, with lots of streetfood...but soon the rain forced me to go home again...i dont know when it was raining the last time "in my world"! (hmmm...probably in bangkok - one day i was washing all my clothes and let them on the rooftop during the night to dry...and then it was raining...and rain in a city like bangkok is really dirty...so it meant washing the clothes again in the morning...but thats a different story!)
the next day i left early to the ruins of palenque. and i really anjoyed it there! in the morning the weather was still bad, cloudy and raining a bit - which ment less people! it was really impressive there...
about 3 km2 of the old city are discovered, but thats only about a bit more than 10% of all ruins from palenque. the pyramids and temples had religious reasons, but some ewre tombs as well...and the most important rulers built the biggest things. palenque is famous for the glyphs found there...and being there is really nice...!!

many people like him are in teh cities...selling chewing gum, cigarettes, sweets...

what more to say...?!

the next day i wanted to go to bonompak and yaxchilan, about 3 hours by car from palenque. since a few years ago there were many robberies, the government dacidet that all tourist busses need to ride in a convoy...and that the tourists with cars should join the convoy as well. since i neither had a car, nor wanted to book a packeged tour, i had to find another way. i took a collectivo again, and it brought me safely close to bonompak. but from there it turned out to be difficult to actually get to bonompak - the 14 km would have cost 3 times the price i payed for the 3 hour drive before...and then i met some people who just returned, did not really like it and said that yaxchilan (my ruins for the next day!) was much better. so i skipped my plan, and took another collective to frontera corozal. (frontera = border...a river seperates mexico from guatemala...yes you are welcome to get some geography lesson as well!!)
in frontera corozal i stayed in a nice eco lodge, with many bungalows...but i was the only guest. the reason is that all tourists book the packeged tours...and they do not sleep there. really a pitty for the people!

on the way to frontera corozal

in my resort

the next day i went up really early, because i wanted to be one of the first at the ruins...its just nicer with less people!i went to the river, the border river, and from there you have to take a boat to the ruins - about 1 hour. but since no prople stayed in this village, no people were there to share the boat. and for myself it was too expensive. so i waited about 2 hours, until the first package tourists arrived - and shared a boat with them! so getting up early for...not no reason, because it was also beautiful at the river, but...!!
the ruins of yaxchilan are less restored than in palenque, but really nice asa well!

guatemala!!!

the view from mexico to guatemala

some tourists spotted something (an animal)

many trees are extremely colourful

in the evening i came back to palenque...and the next day i went to agua azul (blue water) - but when i came it was agua cafe (brown water), due to a lot of rain! but still it was very nice. you will see in the next post!

hasta luego, sevi