The Palenque ruins are perched on hills that overlook a very large valley. Even with an occasional breeze sweeping up from the valley, it was hot and muggy. I shudder to think what it would have been like if there hadn’t been an occasional rain shower and cloud. And this is wintertime here. When the sun comes out, a few minutes later I would be just drenched with sweat. I was wearing a light cotton shirt, shorts with boxers, and sandals. The combination of my previous lifestyle in the cool Northwest, my body’s natural high temp furnace, and the heat and humidity in this part of the world conspired to make it miserable for me here most of the day time. Especially between noon and 5. AC is the only thing that keeps the sweat from pouring off my brow into my eyes all day. One thing I noticed is that my camera isn’t immune to the moisture either. I had a heck of a time trying to keep my lens from fogging up. And since my shirt was soaked with sweat, it didn’t much help wiping the lens. So many of the photos of the ruins at Palenque are taken through a fog. As through a frosted glass, darkly.
Anyway, when we left the ruins, we drove down to the museum and the place had nice fans running so it wasn’t too unpleasant. The objects they have here were removed from these ruins (mostly), unlike most sites in the Yucatan, where the objects have been spirited away to big cities in Mexico and even overseas.
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This object was removed from the mouth of the skeleton of a woman that some scientists believe was a king or queen of Palenque. At least she was highly revered by the people, given the sorts of objects buried with her:
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Well, those are all the pictures I took at Palenque. Hope you enjoyed them. From here on, there won’t be many ruins, unless I just happen to stumble upon some. In the future, I won’t be planning my trips around Mayan ruins. I’ve seen enough to last me for some time to come. From now on, I’ll focus on the beaches, countryside, and people of Mexico and where ever I travel. I will be going to eastern Oregon this year, up around La Grande to visit friends that own a 20,000-acre ranch. I hope to get hundreds of photos in that area and over to the east a few miles in the Hell’s Canyon area so keep on checking back here for new stuff.
Good-bye from the Yucatan peninsula, I guess, for now anyway.