The last set of pictures were day one at Palenque, this set is day 2.
While I wandered around the ancient city of Palenque that first day, for 3 or so hours, I’d run into this cute young women several times. Enough so that we started exchanging pleasantries when we bumped into each other. I found out that her name was Kathleen, she was on her own, was staying in a hotel in the nearby town, and was going to be traveling around Mexico by bus for two months. The newer buses down here are a plush type that is very comfortable, with little TVs to watch in-bus movies, cooling AC, and only 3 seats abreast. Two on the left of the aisle and one on the right. She was taking the plush bus.
When I discovered that she spoke Spanish, I asked her to help me with my RV. Remember that I parked along the road to the ruins and couldn’t find a turn around? Well, she agrees, and when we get back to the entrance to the ruins, she talks to a few people, gets permission, we move some orange cones, and I wander down to get my RV. She accepts the ride downtown that I offer. When I get the RV turned around and we are headed back downhill, I tell her of my experience with the Los Leones…the hotel/motel with a large restaurant in front of the hotel and supposed RV Park. I knew from Church’s guide that they were supposed to have a RV parking for big rigs there. (You can’t see it from the restaurant so I didn’t have any idea if there were other RVs there already, or even if there was an RV park).
Anyway, I had stopped there first before I went to the ruins, and asked the guy that came out if he had any RV spaces. He told me ‘no RV parking’ and talked a bunch of Spanish that I couldn’t understand. Not sure that I had understood what he meant, I brought her back with me as a translator. On the way, a car beeped at us until we stopped. They are an American couple looking for a place to park their class A RV and hoped that we knew, since they had already tried the Los Leones and been turned away. Since they were driving their ‘towed’ vehicle, they had the advantage of already having checked the only other RV parks in the area and nothing was suitable for their 40-foot rig, which means that they were not suitable for my 37 footer either. Anyway, Kathleen leans out my window when we get to the Los Leones and talks to the same guy I had talked to, and for at least 10 minutes in Spanish with me prompting questions. Eventually, she turns to me and explains that yes, they have a RV park out in the back, but without services, but we could use it if we wanted. And it was $100 pesos per night. I drive her to town, trying to talk her into forgetting about the bus and joining me for the two months she was going to be in Mexico. But, sadly, she was going over to the east coast below Cancun for a big ’30 something’ party and planned on getting drunk for four days, and probably get laid by some guy she had heard was going to be there. That part of the coast is where there are a lot of rich Americans so I didn’t have the leverage to get her to join me. Damn. She is a babe with a killer body. And she speaks Spanish. Sigh.
Anyway, I drop her off downtown and head back to the Los Leones, when I get there I pay, and the waiter directs me back behind the place. When I drive back, I find it’s a giant, flat, typical RV park. The place is huge, with no one there. It sports water spigots, AC outlets, and sewer connections at 50 back in spaces. Cool. Only problems seemed to be that they hadn’t mowed for months and the public restrooms were a mess, no problem since I have my own. While I’m choosing a space, that other couple drives in with a nearly new big rig. We discuss the situation, and chose our spaces. I had already tested the electrical outlets and found them to be dead, but water was available. Then I notice a giant electrical box with a huge breaker. It was turned ‘OFF’. I threw it ‘ON’, and the parks outlets came live. We plug in and soon, the AC has made the RV tolerable (it’s very hot and muggy). What luck, or an excellent theft of services, depends on how you look at it. That evening, the 3 of us go up to the restaurant and have dinner. The same waiter helps us. Just a warning, this particular restaurant does the ‘switch’, where they hand you a menu with one set of prices and then you get the bill with more then the menu offered. If you notice it, they pull out a different menu with the higher prices. What should have been $80 pesos became $90 pesos. Since that’s under a dollar, I didn’t go back to complain when I discovered that trickery.
Next morning, my neighbors go check at the hotel office about us all staying another night. The staff says in halting English, no, we don’t have RV spaces, no RV parking, so he walks back, without paying. They offer me a ride to the ruins, while we discuss the situation at the RV park, and we spend the day wandering around, dodging rain showers, and I get another day to visit Palenque.
Note that we already know that there isn’t any other RV park anywhere near here that we can get our big rigs into. When we get back to the Los Leones and try to pay for another night, our regular waiter, the one that told us we could stay in the park, isn’t there. A different waiter tells us they have no RV parking. Period. Since it’s still early afternoon, we drive into town to shop, hoping the other waiter will show up. Two hours later, we have a plan, that since it’s so late, too late for us to find another RV park, we’re not even going to bother to stop and ask, we’ll just zoom back to the spaces and hope no one sees us. Then spend the night. That’s what we do. Then sweat it out for the next hour until it gets dark. Some of the staff know we are parked back there but no one comes back to talk…
Since I’m leaving very early in the morning, I give my neighbors my $100 pesos so they can pay for me on their way out, just as they are leaving, so my leaving won’t cause a ruckus with the staff when they discover we stayed there anyway. I don’t know if they paid when they left or not, and I don’t care…since Los Leones cheated me on the dinner bill the night before. Next morning, I dump my tanks, disconnect, and head down the road. I sweat it for a hundred miles…don’t want to spend time in a Mexican jail for theft of services…
Here are more pictures of this place. It’s really spectacular, I wish the pictures did it justice but they really are no substitute for being here. This set is from the second day of my visit and the weather started out by dumping rain, while I huddled under the giant leaves of some sort of oak type tree, but it let up after that and, if it wasn’t for the stifling heat & humidity, would have been pleasant.
When it did stop raining heavily, I made a bee line from under the leaves of the tree to a pyramid that had some shelter built in. I was surprised to find some of the largest and longest interior rooms I’ve seen so far in Mexico.
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