About 45 mins before arriving into Campeche, I started to see glimpse of the sea again! It’s been a while since I was near the coast, and it was also nice to feel the warmth (perhaps maybe a little too much here!), after being in a colder climate the last few days.
Some sections of the bastions are still walkable, which is a nice way to view the city from the top.
Located 55km away from Campeche, Edzna (“House of Itza”) was founded around 400 B.C., and was eventually abandoned in about 1450.
The most famous monument is the Building of 5 Flats, a five-level pyramid with numerous rooms and a cross-shaped sanctuary, located in the Grand Acropolis.
The Palenque ruins opens at 8am, and I wanted to be at the grounds early to avoid the crowds. Taking a collectivo at 7.15am, which costs MXP20, I got to the entrance at about 7.40am.
He also pointed out the howls of the howler monkeys, which could be heard throughout the whole time I was at the Grounds. Apparently, the producers of Jurassic Park had recorded the sounds of Howler Monkeys in Guatemala and used that as the background sound in some of the scenes!
I was shortly joined by the couple, whom was on the same Agua Azul and Misol Ha Falls tour, and we spoke about the wash out weather the group would have had yesterday.
I noticed that the couple had a band around their arm, and at first thought it was the admission ticket, but was told that it was the Palenque National Park fee, separate from the ruins admission and had to be paid at an earlier entrance. It was then I realised that the collectivo I took had not stopped for me to make this payment of about MXP31. No one at the ticket counter seemed to question me for not having the band fortunately.
Instead of taking the ADO bus from San Cristobal to Palenque, I came across many travel agencies offering an interesting option of travelling in a shuttle van to Palenque, stopping at Agua Azul and Misol Ha Falls.
The route also brings the group to the Palenque ruins before returning to San Cristobal. I had arranged with the travel agency to skip the ruins, since they are limited to only 2 hours at the Park, and to leave me at Palenque town after the Miso Ha Falls. This cost MXP350, inclusive of admissions, which was even cheaper than taking a direct bus on ADO.
The tour picked me up at about 5am in the morning, an extremely early start, so that those who are ending the tour back in San Cristobal will be able to return back by 11pm. Super long journey!
After a long 11+ hour excruciating overnight bus ride from Oaxaca, I finally reached San Cristobal. I miss the luxury buses available in Argentina / Chile!
San Cristobal is a popular city stop for many travellers as it serves as a midway point towards Oaxaca, Palenque or Guatemala. Another beautiful colonial town, with a long T-shaped cobbled stone pedestrian-only street cutting through Zocalo (town square), and lined with chic shops, restaurants and café.
At one end of the Pedestrian only street is a sprawling food market, selling gorgeous specimens of the fruits and vegetables that grow abundantly in the Chiapas Highlands: avocados, marble-sized tomatoes, and rainbows of chillies.
Oaxaca (pronounced wa-hah-kah), is a colonial town located about 300 miles south of Mexico City, and about 5hrs from Puebla. It was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1987.
Characterized by a similar layout of the main town area with low lying colorful buildings as Puebla (without the colourful, patterned Talavera tiles), but with a more disorganized feel, the streets are constantly filled with traffic and street markets.
Monte Alban, the largest pre-Hispanic city in the region of Oaxaca, represents the first urban plan on the American continent.
It is also the heart of the second largest ceremonial site in Mesoamerica, and is exceeded in size only by Teotihuacán.
In 1987, UNESCO named this Zone of Archaeological Monuments a World Heritage Site.
A few hours after arriving into Oaxaca, Rickardo and his friend Alberto, whisked me and Marta (Spanish traveller, whom Rickardo had just met the day before) to a village called San Martin de los Cansecos, located about 1.5hr outside of Oaxaca city.
There was already a huge crowd, all seated down around a patio, listening to a group of elderlies speaking on a microphone. It seemed like the entire village had gathered in one place for this important occasion.
I didn’t know what to expect at first, but was very pleasantly surprised by Puebla. The city is laid out in an orderly fashioned, with low rise multi-coloured colonial houses, many in Baroque style and with beautiful balconies, and covered in the colourful, patterned Talavera tiles for which the city is famous, that it had been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
It was very noticeable that effort had been taken to preserve the buildings in pristine conditions, with some of these houses being converted into quaint cafes, restaurants and boutique hotels. The city is laid back, a huge contrast from the hustle and bustle of Mexico City, and more pleasant.
A day trip out of Puebla brought me to Cholula, located about 12 km outside of Puebla. Took a public bus which took about 40 mins to get to Cholula town centre.
The most famous attraction in Cholula is the Great Pyramid (technically called a temple, not a Pyramid), or also known as Tlachihualtepetl, an ancient Aztec temple. In fact, it’s not one temple at all, but consisting of no less than six, one on top of the other, built over 6 centuries.
It grew in stages, as successive civilisations improved on what had already been built. At 450 meters wide and 66 meters tall, it is the largest pyramid on the planet, with a base four times larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza and nearly twice the volume (The Great Pyramid of Giza is taller, at 146 metres high). It also retains the title of the largest monument ever constructed anywhere on Earth, by any civilisation, to this day.
I left Stefano's house at 7.45am to catch the 8.07am train to the airport, which later required switching to an airport shuttle from T2 ...
