Villahermosa, Tabasco

This was our arrival and departure point. In hindsite, if we had actually planned an itinerary, we probably could have made better use of our time by flying out of Mexico City on the return. Instead, we had a 15 hour bus ride back but that's another story. :) Villahermosa is a fairly wealthy city, especially in the southern states which are considered the poorest parts of the country. It's wealth is due to the oil deposits in the area. We enjoyed the clean pedestrian walkways, the outdoor street vendors and the wonderful evening breeze on the pedestrian bridge. The biggest attraction in this city is the Museo Parque La Venta, which consists of monuments found at the Olmec city of La Venta, which is situated near the Tabasco/Veracruz border.

The town of Palenque is very small; most of the stores here catered to tourists though there were so few gringos around when we were there. Ever since the ruins have been made famous, Palenque became a spot on the map. We enjoyed lots of mangos here, and the best jugo de naranga. Leaving Palenque though, was an adventure in itself (long story) but the moral of the story is, when in Mexico, always go to the ADO station (first class bus line).

Our second day there, we took a 14hour long tour visiting both Yaxchilán and Bonampak. In addition to our driver Enrique, we were joined by tourmates from Holland, Spain, Canada, Italy and Acapulco. We first stopped for breakfast in a restaurant that is in the middle of a jungle; after clearing with the military (everyone has to register to travel down that road), we drove off to a small town to board the long boats to Yaxchilán.

Yaxchilán - Set up high in the mountains, and looking across at Guatemala, this was a perfect pilgrimage setting for the Lancandones. To get here, we had to ride down the Rio Usumacinta on a motor boat (45 mins there, 1 hour back). The jungle was peaceful, except when the howler monkeys throw branches and twigs down at people from the top of the trees.

Bonampak - right next to a Lancandon village, these ruins are famous for the murals on the interior walls of one of the buildings ; it is considered one of the greatest battle painting of pre-Hispanic Mexico. We rode on an open bus-type vehicle from the entrance to the village. It was very dusty there, but the grass and jungle were lush. Lots of mosquitoes as everyone hurriedly applied their insect repellent when we arrived.

Palenque Ruins - one of the best preserved Mayan ruins in Mexico. We spent 4 hours here, in awe of the grandeur of the place. Unfortunately for Jen (probably luckily for Rochelle) :) the Temple of the Inscriptions was closed off to the public so we were unable to ascent to the top. This was probably the hottest part of our trip - everyone had to take refuge in the shade from the noon sun.

Cascadias - These two sites are within 1.5 hours drive from the city of Palenque. Mizol-Ha consists of a very tall waterfall, with several smaller ones nearby where people dove into the pool below. There was a funny sign there that said that all shoes and clothing must be removed before jumping into the water. Hmm.... Agua Azul was quite amazing in comparison - beautiful turquoise clear water, and impressive waterfalls. We spent a couple of hours here soaking in the water and watching the local kids enjoy an afternoon swim. On this trip, we met a nice young man, Lorenzo, who was an Irish Mexican - very interesting mix, eh? We enjoyed his company tremendously.

San Cristobal was a welcome change from the hot and humid Palenque. Situated 7,000 feet up in the mountains of Chiapas, the weather here is constantly cool and very pleasant. Colonial architecture was all over the city, and I had a hard time letting my camera stay in the bag. At the zocalo, we see many Indian women with their children (mostly girls) walk around selling their wares. They all wear their traditional costumes, so it is easy to spot them. The bad part is that many young ones have learnt to ask for money, and in one case, they almost tricked us into giving them $ (for school books, ya right).

The Lonely Planet recommended that we show up at the Zocalo in the morning, and look for a woman carrying a golf umbrella. Sure enough, we met up with Mercedes (as did several others), who tooks us on a 5 tour to two of the neighbouring villages:
San Juan Chamula and Zinacantan. The people here are Tzotzil Mayan Indians. In Chamula, it has a church made famous for its unique way of blending traditional Maya beliefs with Catholic practices. People come to the church and talk to the Shamans about their problems. In both these villages, cameras were not welcome, and especially no pictures allowed of their religious and political leaders. Mercedes was very entertaining, and informative.

We arrived in Oaxaca at 9 in the morning, and at 10, we were already on board a tour to Mitla (crazy, eh?). In case you're wondering why I'm wearing a black longsleeve shirt under the hot sun, that's why! Mitla was considered a Place of the Dead by the Zapotec Indians. As ruins, it is worth visiting for the beautiful architecture, a construction made to withstand earthquakes. We were told that the tiled mosaics were built with no plasters or cement to hold them in place, thus there is no room for movement on any part of the heavily constructed walls. On the way to Mitla, we visited the El Tule, a 2000 year old Juniper tree, supposedly with the largest trunk circumference in the world, and Teotitlan del Valle, the village of weavers.

Iglesia de Santa Domingo - Oaxaca's most famous church. It was built in 1575, and has 6.5' thick walls to make it earthquake-proof (I thought this was an interesting fact). The interior is decorated with lavish gold ornaments, making it one of the more impressive churches of Mexico. There is a botanical garden within the church complex, and we were told that every species of cacti found in the state of Oaxaca is grown here.

Monte Alban - the ancient capital of the Zapotecs and a major city from 500BC to 800AD. The ruins have been partially restored by archeologists in order that we have a better understanding of the grandeur of this historical site. It is extremely large, and I read somewhere that as many as 100,000 people used to live here. As a city up high in the mountains, it had the advantage of looking down at, and controlling the politics, economics and ideology of the surrounding communities.

Around town - We enjoyed walking all over town, particularly up and down the Pedestrian Walk toward the Zocalo. The architecture of this city was amazing, and so was the weather! I would say that this was our favorite city on the whole trip. We would highly recommend Oaxaca to anyone who is visiting Mexico. Good food (must try the mole), and good sights. Of course we had to go visit the public library while we were here; they still use card catalogs, separated by titles, authors and subjects. It was exciting to see that they also used the dewey decimal system (I looked up a chemistry book) - sorry for being a nerdy librarian. I thought I would practice for our big trip.

We spent a long time at the Mercado de Abastos, a huge market where you can buy EVERYTHING! The market is organized by type - i.e. all the fruits were together, meat, pottery, etc. It was huge. We walked for hours and didn't see it all. Of course, after a while, everything seems to look the same. After visiting several other mercados for food and crafts, we enjoyed two wonderful museums. The first is the Regional Museum of Oaxaca (housed in the Santa Domingo Church complex); it has a great collection of artifacts from Monte Alban. The second is the Rufino Tamayo Museum; a wonderful collection of pre-Hispanic art in the country home of the eminent Oaxacan artist, Tamayo. Of course, since Oaxaca is also known for its chocolate, we paid a visit to their famous chocolate house, the Mayordomo, where we sampled some of their wares (we had to be polite, you know).