Our plan for this
vacation was to visit southern Mexico and to enter Guatamala (and see
some villages there) so we could get new tourist visas when we re-entered
Mexico. We had carefully planned out a wonderful relaxing 10-12 day driving
trip. Don's mother, Becky, was coming with us and we packed the
car, excited about our adventure. Little did we know how much of
an adventure it would be. . .
Our trip took us by the tallest volcanoes in Mexico. First
there were Iztaccihuatl (closer) and Popocaptel (in the distance on the left),
just outside Mexico City.
Then the Pico de Orizaba, the 3rd highest mountain in North America
(after Mt. McKinley and Mt. Logan).
This (below) was a very common sight throughout our vacation. Our car
started
overheating somewhere on the highway towards Orizaba. This meant that a
large part of the trip was spent looking for mechanics or waiting on
the side of the road until the radiator cooled. Even more of the
trip was taken by bus, which we quickly learned to appreciate for their
promptness and reliability.
We learned that there are very few
Subaru dealers in the country of Mexico and even fewer mechanics with
knowledge of how to work on Subarus.
Orizaba Following car overheating problems just east of Puebla (which is just east of Mexico City), we limped into Orizaba.
We stayed at the Hotel Cascada. It's named for the big waterfall next
to it, which Helen and Margaret got to see from the top (see below).
The hotel was unique in that pretty decent forest surrounded it:
we saw passionfruit vines in flower and fruit, coffee trees with ripe
fruits, leaf-cutter ants returning to their nest with newly cut leaves.
It was lovely to just walk the grounds - a rarity among the
hotels we've seen so far. While Helen was trying hopelessly to find at least one
mammal in the forest, Sarah and Margaret were more interested in the
trampoline and delicious french toast that was also at the hotel.
There was a zip-line that spanned the gorge; it was late in the day but they squeezed Margaret and Helen in for a ride.
(The one thing you can't see from the pictures is a huge rushing river
that ran through the canyon, way too far down for comfort...).
We zipped across the canyon and
then, rather than cross the river by foot and climb all the way back,
we zipped back. It was great fun.
We weren't planning to spend much time in Orizaba, but our car trouble
forced us to find a mechanic and wait while he checked it over.
So, we strolled the streets and central plaza and discovered that it was a very enjoyable city.
We spent part of the morning at this lovely art museum that featured
many paintings that showed scenes from the history of Orizaba and
Veracruz.
We were planning to go straight
from Orizaba to Palenque, but again our car troubles slowed us down. We
spent a night in Veracruz where we left the car (waiting for an engine
part that was ordered) and continued on to Palanque by bus.
Palenque
Our hotel: Cabañas Safari
This "hotel" was paradise. It consisted of eight cabanas, each
with two queen beds and a nice bathroom. We slept under mosquito
netting, which felt very exotic and tropical. A covered porch in
the
back of each room had tables and chairs. The hotel had a nice
restaurant and a
small (cold!) pool. Again, it was surrounded by forest and
plantation - it was a joy just to walk around and appreciate the sounds
of the birds. There were lots of species of cultivated Heliconia
and gingers on the grounds.
The hotel is located on part of a working rubber plantation.
There were many nearby rubber trees with sap dripping into the
collecting pans. Our first morning we enjoyed watching the
workers processing the rubber (which involved washing it and pressing
it through what looked like a large pasta press) and hanging up the long
sheets to dry.
One of the highlights of the hotel
were the various animals that roamed
the grounds. The owner is a veterinarian and he takes in injured
animals (some wild, some not). "Bambi" the deer was often
nearby and even let
us pet her if we approached slowly. "Santine" was a young peacock
that entertained us in the open air dining room (even going so far as
to snatch a tortilla off of Sarah's plant, which resulted in a
hilarious chase between Helen and the peacock). Santine also allowed to
be petted but only at the expense of getting bitten by him afterward.
Of course the main attraction of
Palenque were the amazing Mayan ruins. It dates from
250-900 AD, when it was the capital of an extensive region. It is
most famous for its size, the quality of its architectural and
sculptural works, and by its well-conserved glyphic inscriptions.
Although discovered hidden away in the forest in 1567, it
remained relatively unknown and un-rebuilt until the 1780s. The
buildings that have been reconstructed are the temples, where royalty
were entombed. In the outlying areas are ruins of houses where
many of the commoners lived, although many commoners lived in wooden
buildings that haven't survived the 1,200 years since.
We spent one morning walking up to
the Templo Olvidado (Forgotten Temple). We hired a guide who led us
through a forest filled with stone walls from mayan temples that hadn't
yet been excavated.
And the next day back we came, this time to visit the less rebuilt temples.
Some
of us (whose names won't be mentioned) wanted to spend all the time in
the jungle around the ruins. She wanted to make sure that her
daughters learned about buttresses and strangler figs and lianas and
drip tips and Cecropia and epiphytes and stilt roots and howler monkeys
and agoutis and coatis and . . . .
Near the ruins was a museum filled with the more fragile artifacts they
found while exploring the ruins. Some of the photos below show
the inscriptions found in the temples. Most of these tell of the
key events in the history of Palenque: which leader succeeded which
other leader, what year the transfer of power occurred, major
celebrations, births and deaths of governors
