Monday 24 December 2012
Highlights: Ancient ruins of Palenque, Early Christmas
A very late sleep in today as the Ruins of Palenque are within walking distance and there was no need to rush. The best news of the day was it appeared most people in the group had recovered from their colds/flues and stomachs concerns.
During me visit to the ruins I ran into almost everyone on the tour which was good because they all had different ideas on what to see. The ruins are impressive, very different from the other ruins in particular as they are set amongst the forest and lots of green. There was a lot of climbing steps and hills on a hot and humid day. I made the mistake of not having drinking water which later caused me a headache 😦
However that was later and during the day I explored the site, climbing the various ruins and exploring the internal ‘Palace’ walkways. One of the ruins also house a burial site which is fairly rare in Mayan temples/houses. It’s hard to imagine how hard it would have been to built this place and what caused it to be abandoned before the Spanish arrived, maybe a plague?
I walked back the 3 kms to the hotel / campsite with Arron, Lauren,Cynthia, Stephen, Tina and Xinglu at which point I wasn’t feeling well from the heat and sweating in the humidity. Even a Gatorade didn’t help or lunch with replace,met fluids.
I did however attend the Christmas party. We did this today as we have a 9 hour bus ride tomorrow and basically everything else in this Catholic country will be shutdown. The Secret Santa was a success based on the laughs. I got a bracelet, purse and some small puppets I was happy which these despite a few people thinking they were girl only presents 🙂
Sam must of had a lot to drink by this stage based on his actions. I think he put Sid off with his use of certain swear words and comments. Today Sid really earned his money as he organised breakfast and lunch for tomorrow and picked up alcohol for tonight’s party by doing a special run to the town.
After I finished my dinner I had to excuse myself due to my worsening headache. Kate helped me out by staying around to pay dinner with the money I gave her. The night wasn’t great with a headache and missing home as they celebrated Christmas but this is the best time to travel and you can’t have everything.
Nathan's Insights 