Ruined at the Ruins

I haven't blogged for a while cause i've been busy.

Traveling is so fucking painful some times - I am never ever this busy at home!

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Having unsuccessfully auditioned for a two part episode of "Air Crash Investigation", when we arrived at Villahermosa Airport we were experiencing the kind of adrenalin rush usually associated with extreme sports or Montezuma's Revenge. While we waited for the bags we traded various stories about survival - how I managed to find God on the second landing attempt, the lady next to Simone offered her a lollipop and Tania was confident of a successful landing, but quietly shitting herself.

As Tania was the primary Spanish speaker in our group and I was the designated smoker, she went about finding us a transport into Villahermosa while I went about finding a nice quiet place to smoke and gather my thoughts. Despite being honestly terrified during the landing attempts, I had secretly enjoyed the rough ride on the ancient and almost extinct Boeing 737-200 jet.

Background: I had been a bit of a curmudgeon in Mexico City:

"GRR why do they make so much noise..."
"GRR re fried beans for every meal..."
"GRR people here are too poor" and
"GRR i feel sick" etc

When we landed in Villahermosa I was presented with what I thought to be a more leisurely pace - Villahermosa is a small town that reminded me too much of Newcastle, Australia for my liking, but it was a welcome change from the fast, loud pace of Mexico City.

The lady working the Taxi stall was incredibly helpful given that Tania was speaking in the native tongue. Despite my parents warnings that Mexico will be the death of me ("don't take taxi's , they will rip you off") - the Mexican airports have a pretty good system of pre-paying taxi's with prices clearly advertised and not subject to change.

From the Airport to Villahermosa was about 200 pesos ($20 AUD) and as we checked out the price board our eyes collectively focused on the price for Palenque, our final destination that night, at 1000 pesos ($100 AUD).

The girls had wanted to check out Villahermosa, walk around, vibe it out, while we waited for an ADO 1st class bus to take us to Palenque.

I had made my feelings known in Mexico City that I was not bus people and that the indignities associated with bus travel would make me more upset than if I died due to some freak plane accident and that I would only catch the bus if it was absolutely necessary.

The girls decided that the best option was to split a cab to Palenque, and to see if we can offer the driver a few more peso's for a quick tour around Villahermosa city. I, of course, needed no consultation on this decision and was extremely pleased with the outcome, especially the part about not having to lug our bags around Villahermosa and then onto some chicken bus.

Villahermosa turned out to be a bit of a shit hole (EXACTLY like Newcastle, Australia) and while it had all the attractions - a cathedral, a statue or 20, a river; there really wasn't much going on. The only thing which I found appealing in the town was that its in the province (or whatever) of Tabasco and almost every restaurant had a sign advertising Tabasco. This of course, was of great interest to me, but traveling with 2 people who avoid spicy food like I avoid fruit AND who had given up an afternoon of site seeing to avoid me having to catch the bus, I thought it wise to shut the fuck up and not suggest we stop for a meal.

As the story goes, We were all glad that we only spent 45 or so minutes in Villahermosa hopping in and out of the taxi for photo opportunities. The joy that we would be heading to Palenque in the comfort of a taxi, meaning we would arrive at about 8:30pm at night and not midnight like on the bus, was shared by all.

More to the point, the hotel I booked in Palenque had a pool. Hooray!

My first impressions of Palenque was how much it was like Goulburn, Australia - except with ancient Mayan ruins instead of a massive concrete sheep "tourist attraction / servo".

The town itself had a certain Mexican charm (it was dirty) but at the same time it was safe and did not feel totally overrun by tourists. Tania and I went on a walk that first night and discovered not much, but we were able to purchase a large jerrycan of Bonafont (my favorite purificado agua) and some other assorted necessities like a kit kat.

The early arrival gave us (more to the point, the girls) the opportunity to suss out day tours while we (more to the point, I) made good use of the pool and the wireless internet connection. Getting wireless internet connected in a foreign hotel really is pot luck - the people at the front desk spoke no English and no matter how much of a mexican accent i used with my English - they had no idea what I was on about.

Two games of charades + Tania + a crude drawing of a network = I was connected!!!

WEP keys are permanently on my list of things to bitch about until I die.

We spent a day checking out the Ruin's at Palenque which were spectacular like something out of a computer game - I can definitely see why the Mayan ruins are so iconic and replicated far and wide and I really felt like I was inside a Nintendo or Sierra computer game, trying to find the hidden key to get to the next level. At one point later in the day I found a random question mark next to a tree, EXACTLY like the ones in Super Mario Bros and I was positive that I was playing some kind of lost level game.

On arrival at the Ruins, Tania cracked the big time shits after her copious amounts of bi-lingual and artistic tactical organization did not entirely pay off and we ended up having to pay an extra 100 peso's for a guide, who in hind site walked us around the ruins telling us tit bits of information like

"this is a ruin",
"those are steps"
"they looked different back then",
"this is the ancient mayan Baños and this is how they used it" and
"you use Baños over there"

I didn't mind paying the extra 100 pesos ($10 AUD - ciggies cost more) and it turned out that our guide, "Professor Baños" was worth it for the laugh.

Tania is ever the one to crack the shits over nickles and dimes and i secretly thought the self induced indignation was quite funny, especially as the other guides were looking at our digital cameras and other flashy assorted western gear knowing full well we could afford the $10 AUD.

I get her point ("its the PRINCIPLE of it now") that at every step of the way in Mexico and Latin America they seem to lie to get more dinero out of the turista and it is incredibly frustrating until it becomes clear that its basically nickles and dimes they're extracting. Sometimes the rip offs are amazingly big and humiliating in hind site but thankfully , that did not happen to us.

Professor Baños was wearing a safari suit which made it all the more funny and reaffirmed my belief that I can NEVER trust a man in a safari suit.

About a hundred photo opportunities later it started pissing down in that tropical way where it seems never ending and an umbrella seems like a futile solution. We found a proper shelter and waited it out with some locals who appeared to be "working" in the jungle (I was secretly praying they were 'harvesting' something in the jungle and would produce some 'crop' for a rather stressed turista) but eventually the rain stopped and we continued on our jungle journey to some more ruins on the road less traveled.

It was gorgeous except for all the rotting fruit smells and flies, but we stopped for another photo opportunity, this time asking some random people to take the photos for us. It turned out, the people we asked were English and spoke English!

I affectionately referred to these people as "The English" (right up until today) but to their face it was Jayne and Steve-o. We bumped into them later on at a waterfall and then again at ANOTHER waterfall and ended up spending some time walking around and chewing the fat. Jayne and I found commonality in the TV shows we watched ("this is EXACTLY like i'm a celebrity get me out of here") and Steve-o worked at a big telecommunications company so we had some good laughs about that.

The English and I thought this part of Mexico was a bit peasant and backward and at times, shitful for the most part, but the last waterfall we were at was amazing. Unfortunately the locals were totally crazy and clearly accustomed to extracting dinero from turista, but this was rather funny so it was OK.

On the drive down to the last waterfall (on such dodgy mountain roads we were all about to hurl) our bus driver kept stopping as the ever resourceful locals would close the road by holding up some rope, waiting for the driver to pay however much it was, then dropping the rope and allowing us to pass.

This happened 3 or 4 times, and at all times there were entire families sitting by the road trying to sell local fruit, random items of folk clothing and tea towels.

On arrival we stopped at a restaurant, which in these parts was basically a roof over some ground and heaps of random stray dogs wandering around and we ordered things like bread, vegetable soup and fries as there was no way our stomachs could handle anything more flavorful on the ride back.

Interestingly, this roof/restaurant had Cable TV and a gaggle of random locals were sitting around watching a football match on ESPN. It was strangely comforting to know that even in places where kidnapping is not entirely out of the question, that if I was to be kidnapped, I could watch MTV.

After eating we strolled around the local area where the local elders had rather cunningly set up stalls at every single opportunity selling trinkety tourist stuff or access to a "clean" Baños. The local children who, perhaps, are not old enough to work a shop, simply ran around chasing after tourists begging for either money or chocolate or trying to sell some kind of berry they found in the jungle.

The waterfalls were amazing and the absolute best part was when I jumped in and swam around in water so pure and fresh it washed away all the negativity i'd been experiencing in the past few days. I felt SO great when I was in that water. Steve-o and his mate followed, then the girls came in, and it was totally relaxing to be away from the hustle and bustle that is Mexico for a few brief minutes. Water makes EVERYTHING better!

We ended up leaving on our bus back to Palenque and we said goodbye to The English. The trip down was equally as queasy as the trip up but we made it back safely.

That night the girls ended up walking around Palenque a bit and doing some shopping (or whatever it is that they do) and I stayed back and read a book.

That night, we ate dinner at a restaurant which appeared to be nice, but they managed to fuck up Spaghetti Bolognese so bad and my Kebab was alright except for the re-fried-fucking beans.

The next morning, I had fully come to terms with the realization that we were not about to take a taxi from Palenque to Campeche, our next stop. Not that I really pressed the point too much (if at all) but it was in the back of my mind like how I thought I would be kidnapped and watching MTV at the Waterfall.

Tania reassured me that the bus really was first class and that everything would be OK. I remember vaguely something my friend Lynn had said about how horrible her bus was around Mexico but that she went for the cheaper bus and that there were more expensive buses which could possibly be nicer.

To my absolute surprise and delight the bus that Tania had insisted on was like flying business class! It had TV, reclining chairs; it was heaven. I made a mental note to never ever catch a bus with Lynn who clearly has a problem spending $23AUD on luxury and quality for 5 hours.

Really easy to sleep as well - I was reading a book called Consumed which is about how we've all been turned into infantile consumers by marketers. While I completely agree with the sentiment, it was boring as hell as the author made his point on every single page (~400 pages). I felt like writing to him saying "i am an adult, you only needed to tell me twice" but having been infantile enough to spend $24USD on a book berating me for doing so, I deserved it.

Good sleep, anyway.

Palenque Ruins

Palenque Ruins

Professor Baños and me, doing the proper Aussie tourist photo pose.

SEE!! I told you it was like a computer game!

Simone, Tania and I swimming at the waterfalls