taco's & toucan's travels ~ 2019

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DAY 23

Week 4

PALENQUE (Chiapas, MEX)

Saturday April 6^th, 2019

TODAYS MILEAGE – 13 miles / 21 kilometres

TRIP MILEAGE – 15,200 miles / 24,462 kilometres

Today marks 3 weeks on the road and according to Polarsteps I've travelled just on 1,799 kilometres (1,119 miles) this week, for a total of 24,462 kilometres (15,200 miles) for the trip so far.

Most of the group decided to head out on a jungle walk from 8AM this morning, but having had many hard slogs though dense vegetation while living in North Queensland, I decided to pass on the morning walk and spend the time on a leisurely breakfast and updating my blog.

We did plan to meet up with the group at 10AM for a guided walk through the Zona Arqueológica Palenque (Palenque Ruins). This saw us on the side of the road like a local and paying 10 pesos each (74 Australian cents) to ride on the “collectivo” local bus to get to the site of the ruins.

The Palenque ruins date from 226 BC, are claimed to be one of the best examples of Mayan structures, with the discovered areas covered up to 2.5 km² (1 square mile), but it is estimated that less than 10% of the total area of the city is explored, leaving more than a thousand structures still covered by jungle.

Compared to the Teotihuacán Pyramids and Zona Arqueológica de Monte Albán sites, the excavated Palenque site is considerably smaller, but a heck of a lot greener obviously - as the site was literally hacked out of the jungle.

After a couple of hours of climbing up, around and over the site, I decided to cough up the 20 pesos ($1.50 AUD) to catch the collectivo into Palenque township, located about 10 kilometres (6 miles) away.

After a great lunch at Restaurante Maya Cañada, where I had a grilled Chaya stuffed chicken breast with Xcatic sauce, that was absolutely brilliant.

From there it was siesta time and some serious time in the pool, while sampling mango margaritas ..... again ..... with Fitzy happy much.

During the dinner service, we were treated to a bunch of howler monkeys having a chat in the surrounding trees and as the live video show, for such a small animal - they have a huge booming chorus.