Dec 4, 2007
Palenque
Made it to Palenque with no trouble at all, after getting directions out of Campeche at the Fuerte de San Miguel, a big fort up on a hill overlooking the Gulf. The one thing about driving here without good spanish, is that it sucks when you ask directions and then can´t understand what they are telling you, which has happened to me several times. But when I couldn´t really understand the ladies that worked at the fort, the tour bus driver outside gave me directions I could understand. The difference: he peppered the directions with key landmarks, like “Volkswagen” and “la gasolinera.” What I have learned so far: ask for directions often, even if you think you are going the right way. Chances are you may not be, or there may be a better route, as the barista at an oddly placed Italian coffee house outside of Chompoton informed me.
The drive was quite scenic along the coast, miles of untouched beachfront and surprisingly blue gulf waters down past Chompoton, where I left the coast to head inland. Nothing notable except the mountain bikers for Jesus I keep seeing. They have saints portraits mounted on the handlebars and some even had crosses and the like mounted on the backs of their bikes. A 3pm Nearing Palenque around 3pm I figured I´d hit the archeological site first just to scout out places to photograph tomorrow. Very overcast and, as Victor the guide warned me, “not enough light for photographs.” I thought, odd, how does he know. But alas, f4 and 1/60 sec isn´t going to bring home any prize winning landscape photos folks! The site is absolutely amazing though, I can´t say enough about it. By far the best yet. It is very Angkor-like in setting and quality of the ruins. Old black stained limestone and a thick jungle backdrop. I snap a few preliminary photos. A German woman has climbed the palace stairs and is freaking and they can´t get her down. I head back into town, giving Victor a ride, and he shows me where my hotel is. Eat at the Restaurante Maya and have awesome fajitas and fries and coffee to “Sounds of Silence” as Mesoamerican flute muzak.
I once heard the same song played, maybe but probably not, by the same mesoamerican flute musak supergroup in the piazza Navona in Rome. A few people gathered around and a guy who looked like Trotsky next to me said to his girlfriend, “This is the definition of hyper-reality.”