Tuesday 9 December 2008

Palenque

I´m constantly in awe of archeologists and historians who spend years and YEARS investigating a particular ruin. Not only a particular ruin, there are people dedicating there entire careers to analysing one building within a complex. I feel a little disappointed that i seem to find it difficult to focus my attention on Mayan ruins for more than about 3 hours.

The information at the sites isn't great, so i'm constantly rummaging through my guide book, or struggling to interpret the site ´map´to work out what the hell i'm looking at. We spent about 20 minutes at Palenque unsuccessfully trying to find a carving of a skull that was supposed to be on the side of one of the temples.

Palenque is really beautiful though. Only 5% of the ruins have been excavated, which is amazing given how much has been uncovered. I actually prefer the ruins that are still ´lost´in jungle. Many of the buildings were designed to reflect features of the landscape, and when they're covered in weeds, trees and flowers, it really does feel like they simply grew out of the ground.

I'll put up a picture, but it's pretty rubbish in comparison to the real thing.

Julie & Derek perusing the guide book:



The ruins:





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to the pictures, even with no bikini:-)

GwynF said...

Hiya! I'm Bert's mate that lived in Mexico for a good while. I logged into my ancient hotmail account by accident t'other day and found an email from you looking for travel tips. If you're still interested let me know. I'm a bit hazy on the whole mesoamerica region, but if you head back up Guadalajara-wards at any point I'll happily give you suggestions. Looks like you're doing grand without any pointers. Lovely pix, and better writing than any travel blog I've encountered yet. Congrats y buen viaje!