Ruins and Waterfalls

I woke up early and set out for Palenque. I checked out of the cabana and caught a combi to the ruins. When I stepped out of the combi I saw that there were already tour buses and big groups of tourists (the pasty skin, shorts, shin high white socks and cameras around their necks type) and rows of vendors of food and souvenirs and all kinds of people trying to sell themselves as guides. I walked past all that bought my ticket (59 pesos plus 28 pesos road tax before we got to the ruins), walked a jungle path up some stairs and took a right at the fork.

Jaw dropping sight. I won’t even describe. Can’t. Google the pictures. Better yet come to Mexico.

Hours of climbing. A thousand and one steep stairs with a twenty pound pack. No matter about the pack – completely captivated by the architecture. Right in the jungle this ruined city of a thousand years past, To imagine such a scene one thousand two thousand years ago – the pyramids then in color, red, blue, white – packed with mayans adorned in colorfull robes and feathers and shells. Kings, priests, peasants, warriors, prisoners. I could hardly fathom the reality of it.

I walked the ruins for a few hours and took a combi back to the city of Palenque. I had twelve hours to kill till my nine pm bus to Campeche. I decided to visit Misol Ha. I took a twenty peso combi which left me at the crossroads on the side of the highway and walked the mile down the road. I had to pay a ten peso road tax to some mayan security guards. I passed a group of mayan farmers harvesting corn who stopped to stare at me and say things to the others in Tzetzal or one of the dialects. I passed an orange tree and picked an orange to eat along the way. Finally I reached the ticket booth and paid the 20 peso entrance.

Misol Ha is probably the most beautiful sight I’ve ever laid my eyes on. A huge thundering cascading waterfall; a pool of jungle green water beneath it; surrounded by jungle; sprayed by mist.

No one else was around. I couldn’t help but to whisper “oh my god” to myself. Unbelievable how lucky I felt. I walked down the slippery wet rock stairs to the pool of water and washed the orange juice off of my sticky hands. I stood staring, taking it all in before I walked back up the stairs and down a path that led behind the waterfall. Even more mind blowing. Good thing I stopped to pull out my camera because a big rock came crashing down from above and cracked in front of me. That could’ve been my head. Dead in Mexico. Rock fell on his head.

I walked behind the crazy waterfall and couldn’t see or hear anything. It was thundering and I was surrounded by mist, immediately soaked. A great scene but I had to get outta of there and walk back up the stairs to stand in the sun awhile and dry off. Two young girls and a guy walked by in bathing suits from the path I’d just come from. A cute dark haired light skinned girl in a black bikini, a heavy set blonde girl and a lanky light skinned guy with a light brown afro puff and a backpack. They came from a little cave (you had to walk behind the entire waterfall and climb over some crazy rock stairs covered in water to enter). I saw them walk down the stairs to the pool of water below and I knew they went in to take a dip. I wanted to take a dip too, but I didn’t want to do it alone. When I saw them head down I started to take off my clothes so I could join them. I put on my swimming trunks and hid my backpack in a somewhat dry spot behind a tree and walked down toward the water.

It was only the two girls in the water and I sort of nodded at them as I started to enter the water. It was so cold and I commented on it. It was the prettier girl who spoke first and who spoke the most. She said it wasn’t as cold as I was making it out to be (true for her, not for me). I asked her where she was from and all that preliminary sort of conversation and we waded in the water (holding onto a rope spanning the pool so that the strong’ish current wouldn’t take us down stream). Her name was Elysse and she was from Mexico. She had dark hair and thick dark eyebrows and light skin and nice eyes and it was good to talk to her. I spoke with her friend too, a bigger set blonde girl named Jess.

Elysse got out first and me and Jess kept wading and talking. We waded in the water for ten minutes before we got to shivering so swam out and dried off out in the sun with Elysse. Her male friend, Martin, joined us and I introduced myself (feeling slightly uncomfortable for being a male who randomly attached himself to the two females not knowing exactly what the relationship situation was). He was from Hungary – a very nice person, soft spoken. I liked him and I liked the whole group and as we dried off I found that they were headed to Agua Azul 30 kilometers down the road and would I like to tag along with them? Yes I would. I still had hours to kill before my bus to Campeche so yes. We all had a good connection going and thus hopped in her truck and set off down the highway.

Along the way we were stopped at a road block. Some locals pulled a rope across the road so that a long plank of wood with upright nails sticking out prevented any vehicle from passing without puncturing the tires. It was a bunch of men on both sides of the road and one of the men walked up to the driver side window. The man was  demanding 200 pesos from us. It wasn’t a violent or aggressive demand, but it was an assertive one nonetheless. He was speaking with Elysse and she was pulling every trick in the book to get him to let us pass without paying – she was giving him big puppy eyes and fluttering her eyelashes and speaking Spanish with real innocent heart melting girl tones. She told him that she had already paid this toll the day before (which she had), and why make us pay twice? It was bad form and in fact bad for tourism (pointing to us three foreigners), saying that when we all went back to our respective countries we would have negative things to say about Chiapas and the locals who demanded money from people simply trying to pass through. The man said he did not care because his community hardly saw any of the money brought in from tourism anyway. Elysse told the man she was a doctor (which she was) who helped heal many of the Maya in the surrounding villages and even began speaking in the local Mayan dialect. The man seemed to give pause to this fact but didn’t budge. We weren’t getting out of it. She spoke with this man for what seemed like twenty minutes and she was very persuasive but in the end 200 pesos were owed.

The 200 pesos paid and we were on our way to Agua Azul. Agua Azul translates to blue water in English. After paying the entrance fee and parking, we stepped out of the truck and feasted our eyes upon a series of short cascading waterfalls. Only the water wasn’t blue. It was the tail end of the rainy season and thus all the jungle river run off turned the water a jungle browngreen. In the dry season the water is a brilliant blueturquoise. It was still a pretty sight to see all the foaming frothy white water, which reminded me of coconut shavings, cascading over the rocks. It didn’t have the breathtaking effect that Misol Ha had and I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit it again unless I was passing through during the dry season when the water is blue.

We walked the path heading further up alongside the waterfalls. The path was lined with vendors selling coconut, fresh squeezed orange juice, empanadas, snacks, trinkets, etc. Agua Azul seemed to be more geared toward the tourist than Misol Ha which had absolutely no vendors. Jess went ahead of us seeming very serious and in her head and Martin lagged behind taking pictures and so me and Elysse walked side by side talking up a storm. Elysse is a good talker and it was never silent or awkward while we walked – though I did feel uncomfortable because I felt that her and Martin had a thing going and I didn’t want to appear as if I was stepping between them. And in fact it was the case that her and Martin had a thing – they met at the airport, hit it off real well and continued talking and seeing each other in San Cristobal. They’d been an unofficial traveling couple for something like two weeks at that point. We met up with Jess further up the path and Martin caught up with us not long after. We were getting hungry so decided to walk back down and buy food from one of the vendors. Martin wanted more photos so decided to continue up the path and catch up with us later.

At the bottom of the path, back where we started, we stopped at a little outdoor restaurant and ordered empanadas. Martin showed up after we had all finished and ordered a plate of empanadas for himself. We sat around chatting – Jess mostly quiet – while Martin finished his meal. We walked back to Elysse’s truck to find a little Mayan boy leaning against it. We all piled in and the little Mayan boy was gesturing to Elysse that he was watching her truck and that he wanted 10 pesos (so many of the mayan children approached us asking for 10 pesos). The little boy’s gesture was his two fingers pointing to his eyes and then to the truck. He was very serious about it and repeated the gesture and his demand for 10 pesos until Elysse finally closed the door on him and started up the truck.

We pulled away and headed back toward the road. This was going to be the last I’d see of this group so I gave them my email and told them to keep in touch. We all said goodbye at the crossroad to the main highway and I hopped out and watched them drive off back toward San Cristobal De Las Casas. I stood at the side of the road waiting for a collectivo back to Palenque. I still had something like four hours to kill, but I’d done all that I could do to kill time. I saw a combi down the road and I flagged it down. It pulled off to the side and I settled in for the hour and half ride back to Palenque.

It was dark when we got to Palenque. Outside of the combi station I sat at a taco stand and ate four tacos. I was still hungry so walked to a little restaurant a block over and bought myself a quesadilla. I was eating extra slow to kill time. After dinner I walked to the ADO station a couple of blocks away and bought my ticket for Campeche.

I sat writing in my notepad for an hour when I decided to go sit in a quiet corner beneath some pay phones. There were two other people sitting near the pay phones and I made eye contact with one of them – a Colombian lady that I’d met and had a brief chat with at the ADO station in San Cristobal a few days earlier. We both smiled and greeted each other and spent the remaining two hours (us both waiting for the same bus) sitting on the floor chatting about what we had done in San Cristobal and onward. She was quite a talker so I mostly sat there and listened. She spoke about Columbia and her life back home. I was very tired and my Spanish doesn’t come out so well when I am tired so I didn’t add anything interesting to the conversation, just a lot of head nods and the word “si”.

The boarding call came over the intercom at 9 PM and we got in line. Before boarding we wished each other good travels (I was getting off in Campeche, and she in Merida). She had a seat closer to the front while I had a seat all the way in back. It was a crowded bus. Once the bus was in motion the interior lights turned off and the chatter died down. The tv screens turned on and a movie that I no longer remember began to play. I settled into my seat with my head against the window waiting for sleep to come so that I could wake up in Campeche at 4 AM the next day.