April 28 - Escarsega to Palenque - 140 Miles

Today we reached another major place on our odyssey - Palenque.

The town has the same name as the Maya ruins just a few kilometers from town.  This was one of the greatest of Maya cities, inhabited from about 100 BC to about 900 AD. It lacks the sophistication of either Uxmal or Chichen Itza', but it is impressive in that it is every bit as large a city as Chichen Itza' was.  It has enormous stone buildings for the rulers and the religious leaders, and stone grandstands as large as some of the smaller NASCAR racetracks.  

It also has the Ball Courts, as well as being spread over a very large area.

The interesting thing about this ancient city is that it is in really deep jungle!  With the tours of the other Maya cities, Jim had been saying that the areas weren't really his concept of Jungle, but rather just very heavily forested area.  Well, he now agrees that Palenque is really jungle.

Back to Mexico 2004

Back to Trip Index

Next day