Pictures: our cabana and the surrounding area at El Panchan
now the last few days have been our favorite place to stay. we have been in palenque which was a 12 hr shakey bus ride past bright and colorful houses, forests, and people riding these fantastic bicycles which have big metal carts in the front where you can put a chair for grandma to sit on while you ride around town.
and into southern central mexico. palenque is a small town based upon the tourism related to the Palenque ruins which are known as some of the most spectacular ruins of all. halfway between the town and the ruins is an area in the jungle called El Panchan where we are staying. its a group of cabañas of different sizes and shapes and all beautifully painted with suns and mountains and mayan type art.. they are spread out quite a bit and surrounded by a meandering stream complete with bullfrogs and fish. the path to our little abode goes past a pen where a boar is kept company by 8 cats and also there are birds of paradise flowers and some other ones that i dont know the name of but big and purple.
the air is heavy with humidity and filled with some pretty interesting calls of tropical birds as well. not so romantic are the gigantic spiders that come out at night... we love it here though because its so peaceful and the people are great and there is an open air restaurant that has local music and firedancing every night.
the ruins are an ancient city with remains of magnificent paintings, delicate carvings, sacred tombs, and towering temples now mossy mud covered piles of once neatly placed stones. all around you are the roars of dinosaurs too... what? no seriously, that is exactly what it sounds like but its actually howler monkeys.
speaking of monkeys... the other night when jared was working outside our cabaña on his latest environmental art piece (a little caballero) he heard what sounded like a lion tearing through the woods near him. the next time he heard it he looked up and across the stream he could see by moonlight a very big almost gorilla sized silver back monkey!! the next morning as i was coming out the cold shower behind our shack i was able to watch a family of smaller monkeys making their way across the very top of the canopy by our place--this place is so great!! we asked the woman who owns the cabanas what kind of monkey would have been huge and silver and she laughed and said she never saw one like that---nor had her husband that was working nearby either!
Tomorrow we head on to San Cristobal and then... we´ll see!
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