Yaxchilan and Bonampak, Chiapas

We just returned from a 2 day trip to the Mayan ruins of Yaxchilan and Bonampak, which are located near the border of Guatemala and Mexico. This is one of the many "end of the road" areas in Mexico. This trip has been our favorite so far, definitely a highlight of our trip to Mexico.

We decided to do the trip on our own, without a tour to save a little money. A tour would be about $200 for 2 days for both of us and we thought we could cut the cost in nearly half by going on our own (which we actually did!). We caught the Autotransportes Chamoan minivan in Palenque in the morning and went 2 hours down the Frontera highway to a little place called Margaritos near the native jungle village of Lacanja, which is near the Bonampak ruins. There were 2 other gringos with us: an italian and a 21 year old canadian hippy guy who was an interesting character (didn't speak ANY spanish, seemed stoned all the time, pants were falling down (that must be the fashion amongst the youngsters nowadays to be showing some plumbers crack; we guess no one ever told them that CRACK KILLS!!), and was a little (actually a lot) slow to pick us most concepts).

After we got settled into our little 'cabaña', which was actually a palapa roof shack like the Mexicans of the area live in (see photo), we headed to Bonampak. Bonampak is famous for it's Mayan frescos (see photo). It was very peaceful and quiet there, compared to Palenque and other more popular ruins like Teotehuacan and Chichen Itza. Bonampak was recently discovered in 1946 by some gringos that were led there by a local native from Lacanja jungle. We then headed back to our shack and chatted with some other travellers staying there about going to Guatemala. You can get to Guatemala by crossing the river near there, but we didn't have a guidebook on Guatemala so decided against it then. However, everyone has us convinced now that Guatemala is the place to go.....so we decided we're going to go for a week to 10 days (after we find a guide book, preferably in english).

The next morning we woke up to roosters at 6:30am outside of our shack. We weren't sure how we would get to the Rio Usumacinta, at the town of Frontera Corozol on the Mexico/Guatemala border, about 40 minutes from where we were staying. You have to catch a boat there to go to Yaxchilan or to cross to Guatemala. There were some other people staying where we were, who were on a tour heading to Guatemala along the river so we decided to ask their tour guide when he arrived if he could give us a ride too. Luckily he agreed, for a very small fee of $3 per person, he also agreed to let us join one of his tour groups to Yaxchilan on the boat for only $10 per person plus entrance fees, which was a pretty good deal because a boat up the river for 2 people would have been $55 USD. So we joined them and went upriver 40 minutes in a long skinny canoe-style boat with a sunshade and an outboard. It was a beautiful day and nice to be on the water where it was somewhat cooler than the hot and humid jungle.

When we arrived at Yaxchilan, the first building we entered was Luke's favorite, the Labryinth, where you had to go through a bunch of tunnels with bats hanging from the ceiling to get to the grand plaza. It was pitch black in there and luckily Luke had his headlamp which helped a little. We felt like Indaina Jones Jr. At the grand plaza many of the buildings and temples were overgrown with jungle. As we hiked up to one of the temples we spotted a howler monkey. We heard them roaring while we were walking around the ruins and through the jungle, which was sort of spooky! We also came across a pack of 30 coati which walked right in front of our path in the jungle trail between some ruins. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a decent photo because it was so dark in the leafy jungle they didn't turn out well.

After we were finished at the ruins we caught the boat back to Frontera Corazol and had to track down a bus to get us back to Palenque before dark, because it is unsafe to be on the road at night due to the proximity to the Guatamala border and the illegal immigration, drug and gun smuggling that happens near borders. By then we had decided we definitely are going to go to Guatemala, but we really needed a guidebook to get us through because it sounds kind of sketchy (chicken buses, crime, and there is a "new money" currency issue right now) compared to Mexico travel, so we decided to return to Palenque and first thing tomorrow morning, catch a bus back to San Cristobal and get a guidebook. After that we plan to do a border crossing into Guatemala by bus, about 3.5 hours from San Cristobal.

To add to the excitement, on the return trip to Palenque, our minivan was stopped by Mexican immigration control and 4 people were removed from our minivan because they seemed suspicious to the patrol. They didn't seem to speak good spanish (they probably mainly spoke their native language as they all looked mayan). We guessed thay might have been trying to get to the US from Central America somewhere or perhaps smuggling something. That saddened us, because many of the poor people seem very desperate for a better life. We realize we are so lucky to be able to do what we are doing so freely and have the money to live our lifestyle!