We traveled by bus, watching two "made for video" movies - one good with Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon - the other was really violent with many murders. It is surreal to be passing through Chiapas countryside looking out at small farms with chickens, pigs and little kids in the doorways while being bombarded with U.S. entertainment.
The bus pulled into Palenque, which someone from Canada we met described as a "hell-hole" - a it appears to be little city where people come to buy supplies. We walked with our stuff about 5 blocks to some Collectivos - old VW vans into which pile about 10 people going in the same direction. We drove out into the countryside and stopped at a National Park entrance where they asked for the equivalent of $1.00. We got out and walked into an unmarked driveway just before the entrance which was lined with large green plants with bright red feathery flowers on long stalks. By the way, the weather is now steamy in the 80's so we took off our sweaters and jackets right away. There were loud bird calls and dirt paths and little streams and we walked around and found the "Jungle Palace". The office was a screened in room with a single room on top and a thatched roof. We asked for a bungalow and were led to a little rough wood room elevated from the ground with screened in top by the stream. Inside was a floor fan and a bed. It seemed incredibly exotic! Then we found a vegetarian restaurant run by (apparent) Rastafarians where reggae music was being played.

Yesterday we went to the Palenque ruins nearby. These were built in about 600 - 700 A.D. and occupied for only a few hundred years by a Mayan civilization, but there were huge stone buildings created as tombs and dwellings for rulers and places where ball games were played. They were buried in the jungle until the 1800s and really explored only starting in the 50's. There are carvings in the buildings that give an impression of what people looked like and what gestures and body positions were important. Tomorrow we will go back because there are about 100 buildings and many have very steep tall, slippery stairs so we didn't climb them all. We saw 2 wild toucans while we were there. I hope to see a monkey. While staring high in the tree tops today, I may have seen one.

Thinking of you, some back there in the Seattle winter.... (missing you, but not the winter)