Saturday 12 July 2003
The day was still young when a modern minibus fetched us to visit Palenque. We had learned that it was wise to go there early on the day to avoid crowds of tourists and the mid-day sun. That turned out to be a good advice.
The minibus picked up other passengers in different places and shortly after, we arrived to the Palenque ruins. The entrance appeared very modern with restaurants, museum and nice services. At this time of day we did not see that many tourists and the local souvenir sellers was not really active.
The ruins were comprehensive, nice and spread over an area of 2.5 square kilometer. Original more than 500 buildings was spread over a 15-20 square kilometer area, which is rather impressive considering that the wheel, metal tools, donkeys or horses was not available at the time of construction.
We decided to follow a tourist group with English speaking guide for a time and learned that the Mayas have had a steam bath and sauna here. While we walked around in the baking hot day we heard screaming monkeys from the jungle, but we could unfortunately not see them. The entire area is located in the outskirts of the rainforest, just on a hill were the lowland begins. Palenque is quite impressive and the experience to us actually matched the legendary Macchu Piccu in Peru.
The "Temple of the Inscriptions" is the only temple raised for the Maya king Pakal in 692. During the digging in 1952, archeologists found the jewel-covered death mask of King Pakal in a precious decorated sarcophagus. Today the coffin is standing at the entrance of Palenque ruins, while the mask was on show on the Anthropological Museum until it was stolen in 1985. You will not miss the mask though, as reproductions are for sale all over as souvenirs.
The son of King Pakal, Balam, raised four temples and enhanced the area further. His mausoleum is the Cross Temple and the belonging altar was stolen as well. The altar was probably decorated with jade and other precious stones. Evidence also proves that a sarcophagus and an urn have been standing here. Recently archeologists found a new burial place and are stilling digging; hence, the place was not open for tourists yet. The archeologists think that this is the burial place of King Balams son.
The walk back to the entrance area was through a nice forest and a very pleasant experience. The path winded downwards through a small rainforest where we passed streams and ruins. At the entrance area, street traders were selling cold soft drinks, which was in great need after this hot day. The nearby museum was surprisingly interesting even if small. Many of the finds were on show and a model representing Palenque as it supposedly appeared at its greatest.
Our minibus continued heading at Mi-Sol Ha, which is a tall and narrow waterfall. The interesting thing was that we could walk behind the water. This was great fun and on a particular stone you could wet your hair in the fall and that was of course the obvious place for shooting romantic photos. We stayed only for a short while and continued the trip to Aqua Azul without knowing too much about that.
Aqua Azul is a large, flat and wide waterfall that falls in many smaller falls or levels. This appeared to be the favorite family resort for Mexicans among others because they were able to bath here. Along the end of the waterfall and the river, small thatched stalks matched the place in an appealing way and not covered by ugly billboards and commercials. We were able to walk all the way to the start of the fall crossing small passages and we could actually walk into the center for the fall and look down at the waterfall. That was a very fascinating view.
Down again at the rivers bank, we jumped into our bathing suits and into the cooling water. It was a bit muddy and the stream was strong, but one could swim forward if working hard. It was nice to be cooled off in the water. The baking hot day was devastating and I sweat so much that I was on my second T-shirt at this time.
We stayed here for three hours and had lunch before we returned to the hotel, happy and very satisfied over the tour. Later we had dinner at a nice restaurant that was recommended to us as the best. The restaurant was fair, but the best thing was that we met a nice Italian couple, which were on their honeymoon. While we talked, something did bite the Italian husband and he started looking for the sinner. We might have thought that he insisted a bit too much to find the bug, but apparently it hurt a lot and felt special as he searched insistently.
After a while several waiters helped and at last the found the creep. It was 5-6 cm long scorpion and now the place got busy. Three waiters started hunting the scorpion and they found it on my wet t-shirt that was hanging over my backpack. Shortly after a waiter showed us the creep crawling peacefully in his hand and he explained that the scorpion only had bitten the Italian with its claws and not made a tail-sting. It felt a bit provocative to us that the waiter walked around with the scorpion saying, “it doesn’t harm you”, when just bitten. We looked up the address of an English-speaking doctor for the Italians enabling them to seek help on the bite.
Fortunately, the Italian couple had a great sense of humor as they claimed their Tequila must have been with “an extra bite on the house”. After we returned to Denmark, we received this email from them, describing their visit at the local Mexican doctor:
...believe it or not, going to the hospital was as an amazing experiece as the restaurant in Palenque! The taxi driver took us to this private hospital where there was just one doctor sitting all by himself. Of course his English was a brilliant mixture of Spanish with a moderate scent of Brit accent and tons of made up words. He was utterly unintelligible but so creative! At first Massimiliano wanted to escape as he noticed the First Aid Room walls were stained from the bottom to the ceiling with brownish drops!!! Then the doctor asked him about the scorpion, and noticed that the sting was very superficial. The amazing particular was that he was always asking the nurse ( a girl of about 20) for a confirmation about the typical poisoning symptoms:
"Mariasol, have you ever been bitten by a scorpion?"
"Yes Doc."
"And how did you feel?"
"I had a terrible pain in my finger and a slight fever"
"Max, do you feel the same?"
"Yes Doc."
"Then it's perfectly normal!"
Eventually he told us two important things:1. The only poisonous scorpions are yellow and red and live in the desert (Durango area)
2. Wives are much worse than scorpions.Then he advised Max to take some tablets of painkiller in case the pain worsened during the night. It's 200 Pesos, please. Well, here is another good story from Mexico!