Palenque, Mexico – Among the most famous Mayan ruins

Set deep in the extremely hot and humid tropical rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico lies one of the most famous Mesoamerican ruins called Palenque (or Bàak’ in modern Maya). This amazing place was a thriving city in the seventh century CE (and perhaps even far earlier!) and abandoned long before the Spanish rediscovered it in the 16th century.

While many of the massive buildings, temples and monuments still remain hidden in the dense jungle waiting to be restored and have their stories told, the sections that have been excavated and reconstructed are among the most impressive of the Mesoamerican ruins I’d seen so far. It may not be the largest in the area, but it is one of the most famous Mayan ruins in the area for it’s unique architecture and amazing amount of murals and bas relief carvings that have survived.

If you visit the ruins, the best place to stay is in one of the places right near the ruins themselves, the nearby modern town of Palenque is also a convenient (but not terribly inspiring) town that does offer many rooms and restaurants for tourists. When visiting the ruins be sure to wear shoes that aren’t slippery (trust me, you’ll want to climb!) and take lots of water. Wearing strong sunscreen and bug repellent is a good idea as well. The sun gets very hot by late morning and almost unbearable in the height of the day so you may want to try to get there very early to avoid the heat and throngs of other tourists.

The museum just outside the gates is also well worth a look and the entry fee was included in the ticket price to enter the ruins. There’s some amazingly well preserved artifacts in there including some beautiful ancient Mayan jewelry, jade death masks, obsidian knives and stucco murals. The plaques describing the items are written in both Spanish and English and do give quite a lot of information.

I was getting over a fairly bad case of food poisoning while I was visiting Palenque (that I oddly got at a ‘nice’ vegetarian restaurant aimed at tourists.. back to market food for me!), and the temperatures went over 40° Celsius with super high humidity so sadly I didn’t have the energy to explore as much as I would have liked but here’s some photos I snapped while I was there.

Photos From Palenque, Mexico

Cute Little Lizard!

I woke up to find this little guy sleeping on my toothbrush, my squeal and rush to grab the camera woke him (or her) but I got this shot as it scurried up the wall.

Bas Relief in the Palace

One of the many surviving stucco images in the Palace courtyard. The guide told me that this was an image of a prisoner based on the body language.

Artwork From Palenque’s Palace

This was miraculously found intact and placed back on the wall of the palace.

Looking Over the Ruins of Palenque

There’s a few spots in Palenque where visitors are allowed to climb the ruins, if you travel there, trust me, the view from the top is gorgeous! Here’s a semi-arial photo showing the landscape and some of the structures in Palenque.

View of Palenque From Above

And another photo from the same spot as the last one.

Temple of the Cross

Here’s one of my favourite photos from my time exploring Palenque!

Nature Taking Over Palenque

Outside the restored section of Palenque I found this tree growing out of more ruins, seeing nature taking back the earth always fascinates me.

Stucco Tablet

One of the amazingly intact stucco tablets found among the ruins from the 8th century CE, it shows U Pakal K’inich during a ceremony while in his teens. This tablet can be found in the museum near the entrance to the ruins, it’s well worth visiting to see the many pieces being carefully preserved as well as finding details about the areas history.

“Yum Cash”

Hmm, this summed up how touristy the area is. ;) I saw this on the wall of one of the nearby restaurants.