Fathers Day In Mexico

It's Father's Day in Mexico, not that the boys knew that of course, so moving right along.

We arrived in Villahermosa around midnight, and they must have had pity on us even though this wasn't our final destination, because we found ourselves checking in to a nice hotel in the old part of the town, though we didn't have any chance to check the town out.

This morning after breakfast it was back on the road, out past the airport and on to the town of Palenque. We're now in the Mayan part of Mexico. The Maya civilisation was noted for its hieroglyphic script - the only known fully developed writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas - as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical systems. The Maya civilisation developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador, so it was a big concern.

Whilst many dominant civilisations last only a few hundred years, the Mayans lasted almost 3000 years, so they are an important and significant group. The first Mayan people emerged as farmers around 2000 BC. They are responsible for the cultivation of many of the staple crops we use today - maize, beans, squashes, and chili peppers. Hieroglyphic writing was being used in the Maya region by the 3rd century BC.

The first Maya cities developed around 750 BC. Around 250 AD Maya civilisation develop a large number of city-states linked by a complex trade network. They lasted until the 9th century when there was a widespread political collapse in the central Maya region, resulting in the abandonment of cities. The last Maya city fell to the Spanish in 1697.

On the outskirts of Palenque is the only rainforest national park in Mexico - yep, I didn't expect a rainforest in Mexico either - and within the national park is the archaeological site of the Palenque ruins. The Palenque ruins date from around 226 BC to around 799 AD. They are not the most important ruins, it was only a mid-sized Mayan town, and only cover a small area. However, they are some of the best preserved ruins. The site is very like Angkor Wat if you've been there. It was all abandoned and heavily overgrown by the forest until significant reclamation started in the 1940s. Today they say that over 90% is still uncovered, and many of the hills around the place are actually cities overtaken by the rainforest.

We spent the morning looking around the ruins. For a site of such significance, there were hardly any guards or attendants, and you could climb almost anywhere, including into the tomb pyramid of the Red Queen.

The most famous ruler of the Palenque area was Pakal the Great who ruled from 615 to 683, which is pretty phenomenal when you consider the average life expectancy of the time, and it was his buildings and artifacts that we principally looked at. The Red Queen could well have been his wife.

Being a rainforest, it was very humid, and so we dripped around the site for a couple of hours, then wandered down the trail through the rainforest checking out the abandoned homes of some of the nobility, before we ended up at the museum which housed some of the artifacts that have been excavated from the ruins.

Dropped off at our next motel mid afternoon (we've long since given up trying to remember room numbers), we had a swim and a nanna nap before walking down to the eating strip in town for a lovely meal during which the evening downpour arrived.