at this moment, I am in a treehouse, looking out at jungly cattle land, in this interesting budget travelers paradise at the borders of Palenque ruins, called El Panchan. No, Craig and I are not staying here - we tried but since we couldn´t find Margarita of Margarita & Ed´s, the only place here that offers air conditioning, we took some great advice and went to the lovely luxurious Hotal Chan Kah a quarter mile down the road. But El Panchan is great for what it is - a little community of backpacker´s cabins, tin roofs covering restaurants by sleepy little creeks, dogs and bongo players. The only problem is the rather intense heat-- enough that we decided paying for a pool and air con would be just fine. Budget out the window.
Ocosingo turned out to be so interesting. The valley is large, green, lush, a lot like upland Maui in feel, with open rolling green fields of cattle, macadamias, this and that, with a rim of hills around it that are about the same height on the horizon as Haleakala. There are many, many indigenous people there, who come in to trade their eked-out produce in a market area where they all spread out their fruits and vegetables on the floor. There are some beautiful costumes there, you can´t photograph because they feel it´s bad luck. One of the costumes the women wear is a 6 inch border offshoulder of detailed embroidery then 2inches of lace then a white top, then a tight black ankle length skirt with about 14 bright ribbons in horizontal lines around the hip. Hair ribbons are shiny, abundant and the braids tucked in with large rosettes at the nape of the neck in emerald green or deep rose pink or orange. It´s a vibrant market and since there are so many different types of people, and no one hardly speaks spanish just indigenous dialects, it´s pleasant just to sit and people watch.
From Ocosingo market, we caught a 10 peso (one dollar) colectivo van on an easy ride 14 km out rolling lands to the incredibly nice ruins of Tonina. On the trip we saw trees with bright orange blossoms like sharkbite, real cowboys herding small bunches of cattle on horseback, lots of stops to pick up and let off Indian moms with their silent, round eyed kids and men with their 18 inch machetes. And we were the only people there, at the ruins, for the first 2 hours. This was a mayan city state that sculpted a whole hillside into tiers of temples. There apparently now is a place you can stay out there again, called Kayap, or Cayap, where you could rent horses, and we would love to do that one day. The ruins have a very, very lovely impressive museum with a lot of carvings found on site. Climbing up and up the ruins, you get great panoramic views over the horses, orchards, cropland and ranchland with the green hills beyond. There are many ´secret´stairways from one level to another in the ruins some of which are incredibly tight, you would not want to go in them if you were fatter. There are labyrinths of dark rooms which apparently were used for people (usually the rulers) to see visions in after they had bled themselves ceremonially and probably ingested a little of this and that, representing a personal journey to the underworld. Small place, lots of neat things to see and no one except a few caretakers and guards there. And to bring the real world in - the hum of gas powered weedwhippers.
We´ve been really lucky with our buses and on returning to Ocosingo and having some tacos we got right on a first class bus to Palenque, for 144 ($14.50) for the 2.5 hr ride. This topography is full of ridges and valleys, it´s up and down and around curves for a long time. You descend from the mid highlands down through steep ridges to the flat hot lowlands. Pine trees disappear, bananas and palms start to come in, lots of vines. Here and there you can glimpse the rivers which often have a turquoise look. Along the roads you still see locally costumed Indian women but there is also a lot of slash and burn which apparently is a lot due to lower elevation Mayan and Mexican migrants trying their hardest to eke out a living here. So there are areas of burned forest right up to the top of the watershed, slopes that should never be farmed, planted in corn that will probably wash away with the soil in a year or 2. There are some slopes where the limestone rock is completely revealed. It´s real sad, rainforest destruction in rapid process. Which is why coming down to the area near Palenque town which is near the ruins, is nice, because the birds, insects, and greenery of the jungle can be seen there, if almost nowhere else around here.
Anyway we are staying in the Chan Kah which is a place Craig´s friend Will, who never steered us wrong in Bali, steered us to also. And it´s so worth the $124 a night, I can´t believe it. It is all individual dwellings which have large anterooms for the sinks, luggage and bathrooms off this, then you go around the corner into a large bright room with 2 double beds with a glass front on to your own large lanai. Ours fronts right on the small river which has been left very natural with great ceiba trees, these are trees with trunks that spread sideways into great feet and reach very high up. The Mayans considered that the original of these trees was the way the gods lifted the sky off of the earth. The hotel pool is 3 large pools, meant to look like a Mayan cenote limestone pool, or like the local waterfall pools of Agua Azul, which are turquoise colored water in large basins right next to each other. One is very warm like your own hot springs, one is deeper and cooler. Very nice. Rimmed with limestone rock and of course, you could get poolside service if you need it! The common areas are really beautiful, you perch in the dining room looking out eyelevel into palm tree canopies just over the pool. There are kahili ginger and palms and other beautiful tropical greenery everywhere. It has acres and acres of land, it´s been so hot we haven´t yet explored the grounds but apparently you can hear howler monkeys here at times, just like you can at El Panchan or Palenque ruins. All of these are on a short stretch of rural road, we walk easily to El Panchan to arrange travel plans and get water (to save money off our hotel´s prices, I´m still thinking about budget).
This morning we woke early and easily flagged a colectivo out on the road for 10 pesos to take us to Palenque. This ruins actually flows from one collection of palaces to another, down a mountainside, I hadn´t realized because of course the maps look flat. So as you flow along, you get changing views of the beautiful limestone towers of each palace or temple. It´s very nice actually to climb up the levels and sometimes to find again those secret little passageways that take you down and out. We spent 4 or 5 hours there and just didn´t seem to get tired.
One interesting thing we saw today was our first view of Lacandon indians in person. One of my books mentioned that because they wear all white shifts, and let their hair grow long, they look quite a lot like mystical hippies. They look more like Brazilian indian tribes than most folks we´ve seen. The Lacandon have always resisted farming and settled life, so they weren´t exactly at the heart of Mayan culture apparently either, they have never been conquered by anyone and were never catholicized. Recently unfortunately some of them have been mormonized and evangelized so there are now splits in the community, some are born again and some are holding to their traditional spiritual traditions. They all though are trying to hold on to their pocket of rainforest and so we are paying $50 US to go visit in their area tomorrow, to the ruins of Yaxchilan which they hold as holy and the ruins of Bonampak which they also control. If we were younger and wilder we´d go stay over night there but sleeping in a hammock out in this hot air with jungle insects is beyond both of us at this point. Or, sleeping on a hard flea ridden cot. I think I got fleabites in Ocosingo, I´m not risking it now. Don´t I sound spoiled... we have a few lonely tame ants in our room at the Chan Kah, that´s good enough. They don´t bite though.
So tomorrow into the untouched jungle, then I think, back to the highlands.
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