Palenque, Chiapas - Spring, 2002
We arrived at the Palenque at about 2:30 pm on a Saturday afternoon in March, in perfect 34 C (94 F) degree weather. The whole thing is located in lush tropical rainforest.
Templo de la Calavera - Temple of the Skull
The first thing you see as you come up from the parking lot under the large tropical trees is the Temple of the Skull. It is in a lush setting and is an easy climb. The shape of that middle opening seems to have significance as we encounter it throughout the site.
Templo de los Inscripciones
As your eyes sweep to the left you see the Temple of Inscriptions, which is on the right hand side of the picture below. This pyramid is actually attached to the first one by a third one in between that we did not photograph. However it has an internal set of rooms that we did photograph. In the middle of the picture below you can see the temple of the Jaguar and on the left the start of the Palace.
A Crypt
We entered the pyramid between the Skull one and the Inscription one and found a number of rooms all with ceilings shaped like that first opening, walls tapering in and then a small flat ceiling. This is not for people with clausterphobia.
El Palacio - The Palace
This is an imposing site from the "main square" and is another of the buildings that first strike you as you walk into the site. The tower seems very unusual compared to other sites we have seen and when you climb up the broad steps you come upon rooms and courtyards. The rooms all have those same ceilings as the Crypt and the courtyard held the only decent carvings we found on the entire site.
Several Preserved Carvings
We don't know what happened to all the carvings that this site must have had originally, but these are the only ones we found. As you can see, even these are starting to decay with the moss covering.
Group C
The guide maps were full of jargon and Group C is one of their terms. What we did after scouring the major attractions of the site, is cross one of the rivers running through the site, Arroyo Otolum, to have a look at a group of habitations called Group B. Then we crossed a second river and climbed a hill to reach the area called Group C. These habitations are very minimally restored. This picture below shows one pyramid almost hidden by the jungle in Group C.
Future Pyramid
The next picture shows a pyramid almost completely taken over by nature. To recover this one, they will have to chop down the trees growing through this structure, then kill the roots and slowly replace the stones shoved aside by nature until the original form and structure becomes clear again. We don't know whether they will do this or whether it would improve the site as this shows how man's works are no match for nature - unless we keep at it.
Waterfall and Pool
We crossed back over the second stream and down a steep hill, beside several waterfalls to the Complejo Murciélagos, the Bat Complex. We saw no bats, but more habitations, not pyramids, but what were clearly multiple homes, now in ruins, of course. Then we crossed the Otolum again by a waterfall and large pool, presumably used for bathing back then, but still used for bathing by the tourists now, although officially forbidden.
Getting Out
Afer crossing the bridge we ended up in what is called Groups 1 and 2, not very descriptive but three more pyramids and some other habitations. From here, we had to climb a steep set of stairs and we finally ended up at the Northern group, another grouping of three pyramids that we had visited near the beginning of our tour. As we were now dead tired from all the climbing, we called it a day and shuffled back to the parking lot.
April, 2002.
