Palenque, Chiapas

Our first day in the rain-forest we hiked the Palenque archaeological site in the rain and mist.  The Palenque site reached its prominence between 500-800 AD, under the rule of Pakal I and his son, Pakal II.  Due to inbreeding in the ruling class, it is rumored that Pakal had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.  Under the period of rule of father and son, Palenque rose in prominence and fortification.

Quite in contrast to other sites we’ve visited in the past, it was almost magical to wander up and down the hills in the rain, the hills half obscured by the mist.  You really got a feel for what it was like to really live in a rain-forest.  It also provided a mystical atmosphere to the place.

The kids were particularly fascinated by the tomb of the Reina Roja (Red Queen), which you can view on the site.  They had seen a replica in the Anthropology museum of Mexico City which included some of the original contents.  In Palenque, we entered the top of pyramid and walked down a tunnel to find the original sarcophagus.

Palenque also boasts an extraordinary number of original frescoes.  You can climb all over the site with very little restriction and discover them throughout.  Some of the largest ones were in the patio where prisoners were held.  In our explorations, Matthew and I found a small room with a hole in the floor and a canal beneath it.  We presumed this may have been a bathroom facility. 

Probably one of the favorite surprise and delight elements of this stop was that we used the lower entrance instead of the main tourist entrance.  This gave us the opportunity to begin our walk through the rainforest, climbing up through the jungle paths, across bridges, seeing smaller residential structures first before progressing upward to the hills past some of the lower ceremonial edifices and finally culminating in the palaces and temples at the top of the mount.  It was a route much less traveled and also allowed us to truly appreciate the simpler structures on our way up to the “main event”.  It was also an experience more typical of that of the everyday Maya population during the period of time in which Palenque was occupied.