13 Sept 2011

Palenque

We stayed in a cabana in the jungle, it was hot hot hot with a lot of humid for comfort, mosquitoes the size and agility of WW1 aircraft and we loved it, give us hot and humid over cold any day.


A short combi ride to the Mayan site of Palenque and we spent the day with the ruins pretty much to ourselves. Considering they average 1000 visitors a day over the year we count ourselves extremely lucky and privileged to have passed the time in such an incredible place just the two of us!




Couple of new things we have learnt here - it is now firmly believed that the Mayans (and other Central/South American civilisations of that era) did have the wheel, but they did not have any beasts of burden so carts would have been pulled by men or dogs. All the paintings/images that have survived on stone/rock etc only depicted the rich and famous (oh my that hasn't changed much) who wouldn't have pulled a finger out let alone a cart, hence why there is no pictorial record of such things.


The Spanish conquistadors burnt libraries of books leaving only a few (9!) for us to work from. What must have been lost in terms of scientific knowledge including astrology/medicine/engineering etc etc?


Tropical rain is v wet - knew that already but always amazed by how much of the stuff can fall all at once.




11 hours on an overnight bus is still rubbish however soft and luxurious the adverts and seats pretend to be - grumpy Ben made an appearance...


Yours
slightly less Zen Ben

2 comments:

  1. Ben! Grumpy over a hot and packed and too long bus journey? At least you didn't have anywhere to go. A boring job for example, like all those I saw this morning in the same conditions on the 73!

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  2. Only Ben could bring politics into Mayan architecture ;-)
    Loving the blog - jealous, so more pictures of you sopping wet please!

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