DAY 17: FROM CAMPECHE BACK TO PALENQUE

As of Day 17: Where we’ve been, and where we’re going

I had one last Mayan ruin that I wanted to see, a place called Bonampak, near the Guatemalan border in southern Chiapas. After that, we’d start the long drive north, passing through San Cristobal de las Casas and Oaxaca on our way to San Miguel de Allende, where we planned to celebrate the Day of the Dead festival at the end of the month. The itinerary was certainly workable, but there was more than 1,300 miles of driving involved, most of that on slow mountain roads. I set a schedule, and we were going to have to stick to it, despite the temptation to stay a bit longer in Campeche.

Route from Campeche to Palenque

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Mexican cities can be hard to leave, and I mean that literally, as well as existentially. Leaving Campeche for points south, for example, we started out by driving north, because I wanted to make one last pass along the waterfront on our way out of town. Bad idea. That dropped us smack into the staging area for the Traffic Enforcement Division of the State Police, an elite squad of motorcycle cops.

Up to this point, all our interactions with Mexican Police had been perfectly cordial, but these guys were land sharks, notorious for pulling over tourists and shaking them down for supposed infractions. I got “the look” from at least one of them as we drove past, but they hadn’t started their shift yet, so I got us the heck out of there, as fast as I dared.

Scenes along Campeche’s beach front

MX 180-D

Any serious discussion of the condition of Mexico’s highways will always begin with a recommendation: whenever there’s a choice, you should always use the Toll Roads, which are faster, safer, and generally more free of hazards than the libre (free) State Highways. Leaving Campeche, we took our first opportunity to jump on MX 180-D (the “D” indicates a “Cuota,” a Toll Road).

We pulled up to the booth, paid the toll, and sped off towards Champoton, a beach town that’s about an hour south of Campeche. Unfortunately, the Toll Road ended after just ten miles, and merged with MX 180 (without the “D”). This was a “libre,” highway, so it wasn’t divided, and there was just one lane in each direction, but in this case, that wasn’t so bad. The pavement was in good condition, and traffic was light, so we made good time. The road hugged tight to the coastline, a beautiful stretch that looked a lot like California. There were even a couple of surfers, out there scouting for waves. Then we passed a guy with a bicycle, pulling a trailer full of recyclable cans, while simultaneously pushing a cart full of something else, and flying a Mexican flag. (Come to think of it, even THAT could have been in California!)

Scenes along MX 180, the coastal highway south of Campeche

Local Police stopping cars in Champoton

Champoton, like most beach towns, seemed like a nice place, even though all we really got to see was the busy main drag. Unlike the Toll Roads that bypass the cities and towns, the “free” roads pass through the middle of everything; it’s interesting, but super slow. We found the turnoff to Escarcega, and stopped for coffee at “The Italian Coffee Company.” There was something happening at the fairgrounds involving livestock, infusing the salt breeze with the unmistakable aroma of manure.

Scenes along the road in Escarcega; more local Police action

Driving through again this morning, the town looked different; busier, and nothing about the place seemed familiar. In the downtown area, the local police were out in force, selectively stopping cars, the same type of action we’d just seen in Champoton. Was it some sort of regional manhunt, or a response to a threat? A training exercise? Or just a coincidence?

Scenes along MX 186: 1.) Trash recycling center; 2.) Local passenger van; 3.) Horse refueling stop; 4. & 5.) Studying the map

Beyond Escarcega, we jumped on MX 186, another road we’d driven before, and we followed that west, and then southwest for more than 100 miles, finally turning off on MX 199. That seemingly ordinary road junction was the scene of a huge protest the first time we came through the area; a Zapatista Road Block stopping all traffic entering the State of Chiapas. This time, we had clear sailing, and half an hour later, at about 4:00 in the afternoon, we finally arrived in Palenque. We found our hotel easily enough (thanks to the wonders of GPS), and had a couple of beers in the room to unwind from the drive. The Hotel Chablis proved to have been an excellent choice:

That evening, I started feeling a little rough around the edges. I wasn’t sure if it was overexertion from all the hiking, stress from all the driving, or some combination of the two, mixed with tropical heat and humidity, lack of sleep, and questionable food. I wasn’t able to eat much of a dinner, and I crashed, much earlier than usual.

Day 18: A sick day in Palenque!

Back when I was a young guy traveling on the cheap, I had a cast iron digestive system, and almost never fell prey to the crud that strikes globetrotters when they fail to take proper precautions. Unfortunately for me, it had been more than forty years since that bygone era, and the cast iron part of me seemed to have rusted away. When I awoke on Day 18, I wasn’t merely unwell, I had the BUG! I’d had a wretched night. A tropical downpour just outside our open window woke me up at 1 AM, and I never got back to sleep, tossing and turning, sweating and freezing, running a low-grade fever, along with all those other classic symptoms that we don’t talk about in polite company.  Travelers in Mexico have a name for this horribleness. They call it:

The six hour round trip drive to Bonampak that we had planned was clearly out of the question. I really only had one play here: rest, recuperate, and pray for a speedy recovery! 

Tour groups at Palenque

By the end of the day, I was feeling much better, eating solid food, and keeping it down without a problem. The enforced rest did me a lot of good; we’d been running non-stop since crossing the border, so I definitely needed it. I had to wonder what was it that caught up to me. Montezuma’s Revenge from an improperly washed glass? Food poisoning from a bad shrimp? The symptoms were often similar, and traveling the way we were was a bit like Russian Roulette. Five times out of six, you walk away unharmed, but if you’re in the line of fire when the hammer falls on a loaded chamber, you’ll find out the hard way what all the fuss is about. My quick recovery was an enormous relief. We had a schedule to keep, after all, and I couldn’t afford to fritter away another day lying about in a hotel room.

DAY 19: A Stone’s Throw From Guatemala

MX 307, from Palenque to Bonampak

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The illegal activity, much of which takes place on or near the Highway, was happening mostly at night, under the cover of darkness; we were assured that the road was considered safe during daylight hours, because it was heavily patrolled by the military and the Federales. We were told to expect a lot of soldiers and road blocks, but not a lot of traffic, and as long as we were back in Palenque before sundown, we shouldn’t expect any trouble. We followed that advice, and indeed, we didn’t have any trouble, but keep in mind, this was in 2015, almost ten years ago.

In the time that has passed since our visit, the situation with the Cartels has gotten immeasurably worse, and the gangs now operate with impunity at all hours of the day and night. In an article dated January of 2024 (click the link), the Associated Press reports that Cartel gunmen are effectively in control of the roads in this part of Chiapas, and anyone wishing to visit the Mayan ruins has to pass through their checkpoints. Yaxchilan, a major ruin near Bonampak that was formerly accessible only by boat, is no longer accessible at all, at least, not from the Mexican side of the border, and Bonampak itself is not recommended for tourists (despite assurances from INAH, the National Institute of Anthropology and History, insisting that it’s safe).

Many of the guided tours that take visitors from Palenque to Yaxchilan and Bonampak have been suspended, a devastating blow to the local economy, which is heavily dependent on income from tourism. One guide who was interviewed said that it was getting to be like the Gaza strip down there: armed gangs shooting it out with one another, heedless of the innocents caught in the crossfire. If I was to go back to Chiapas today, I’d probably have to skip Bonampak, so I’m certainly glad that we went when we did. That little ruin was the cherry on the top of our Mayan adventures, unlike anything else that we experienced. Read on, if you’d like to know what it was like, when we drove:

The Road to Bonampak

Our hotel had a gated parking area. Oddly, my Jeep was the only vehicle using it during the time we were there. I got the sense that most visitors to Palenque arrive on buses, or else they fly in to the little airport. Road trippers from the U.S.,  like me and Mike, weren’t remotely common in this part of Mexico.

Pemex station in Palenque: Last Gas Before Bonampak. Attendants do the pumping; there’s no self-service!

The route out of town was familiar: we started out on MX 199, the highway that crosses the mountains to San Cristobal de las Casas. We drove that road after our first visit to Palenque, two weeks before, but we’d only made it as far as Ocosingo before a Zapatista Road Block forced us to turn around. (See: Mexican Road Trip: Zapatista Road Blocks in Chiapas.) Most of the State of Chiapas was Zapatista territory, and we started spotting their road signs (below) as soon as we left Palenque. (Enrique Peña Nieto, referenced on the signs, was Mexico’s President in 2015.)

ZAPATISTA ROAD SIGNS IN CHIAPAS

Fortunately, the road to Bonampak was not one of the routes that was subject to blockade, so once we made the turn onto MX 307, we were pretty much safe from delays due to political protests.

MX 307

Scenes along MX 307: 1.) Palm oil plantation; 2.) Kids walking. 3.) Horses resting in the shade. 4.) Woodcutters, awaiting transport. 5.) Truck loading produce.

The highway was built through the heavily  forested hills of the Lacandon jungle. It’s the kind of road that requires continuous maintenance: we passed one area where newly downed trees blocked the lane, and another where two guys with shovels were working to clear a mudslide that nearly closed the road altogether.

A suspicious hill in a field beside the road: if it looks like a pyramid, it probably is one!

There were no towns of any size along this route. Instead, there were clusters of ramshackle homes strung out alongside the highway, a few here, a few there. The people’s lives and economic status were on full display for anyone driving past, out there on their wide open porches, and hanging on their clothes lines. 

Some of the homes had traditional thatched roofs, a time-tested construction method that has the advantage of low-to-no cost for the materials and labor, which is usually supplied by friends and neighbors, using dried palm leaves grown locally and prepared in advance. A big enough group will knock out a roof like that in less than a day. There are two problems with thatched roofs: they require frequent re-weaving to keep them from leaking, and they harbor entire colonies of creatures, ranging from fruit bats and mice to scorpions and venemous millipedes. That’s the main reason why anyone with the means will go for corrugated sheet metal instead, despite the fact that metal roofs are much more costly, as well as being unbearably hot when the sun shines on them, and prone to blowing away in the more serious tropical storms. They’re considered worth the expense, the discomfort, and the risk, because metal roofs are so much cleaner, they require no maintenance to speak of, and they produce a lovely tympanic symphony in a hard rain.

One thing about this road that was a serious annoyance was the extreme prevalence of Topes, the speed bumps installed for the purpose of slowing traffic in populated areas.  MX 307 had more topes over less distance than any road we’d driven, and that was really saying something. Every house, every bus stop, every side lane, they all had their own Tope, sometimes more than one (a small PRE-Tope, warning of a larger Tope yet to come). Both Mike and I were constantly on the lookout, but some of the older bumps were so blackened by skid marks that they blended with the asphalt, making them easy to miss. We hit a few of those booby traps pretty hard, despite our best efforts.

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Unlike the other Mayan cities we’d been to, visitors were not allowed to drive themselves to either of these sites. We weren’t planning to go to Yaxchilan, but if we did, the closest they allow you to get by road is a parking area near the Usumacinta River. For a fee of 400 Pesos each, a launch takes you down river to the ruins, and brings you back again. As for Bonampak, private vehicles were not allowed on the road from the highway, so visitor parking was here, by the turnoff from MX 307. There was a van that would shuttle us the last five miles to the ruins (and back again), for a fee of 100 Pesos each. The extra fees  were unexpected, but I honestly didn’t mind paying. The money went to a co-op that benefitted the local community, and the income was obviously much needed.

1. & 2.) Satellite Views of Bonampak; 3.) Inside the Transport Van; 4. & 5.) The long walk in to the ruins; 6.) Site Guardians (Mayan men from a nearby village). 

Just inside the entrance, there was a shady palapa, atop a low platform edged by ancient steps. That’s where we paid our 100 Peso entrance fees, to a different group of Mayan villagers. This was a solemn transaction, duly witnessed and recorded. Each of us was given a receipt, which we were instructed to show to the guards who controlled access to the temples.

There didn’t appear to be all that much to see here. Front and center was an unremarkable, medium-sized pyramid, topped by several smallish structures, some of which still bore traces of faded red paint:

Main pyramid and temples at Bonampak. Traces of the original red paint are still visible after 1200 years!

Bonampak: Structure One, protected by its own free-standing roof, is on the right

After Bonampak was abandoned, somewhere around 800 A.D., those doors were sealed off by an accumulation of debris, and they remained that way for more than a thousand years. On the outside, the temple was just another nondescript mound of rubble, half buried by tropical vegetation. On the inside, out of view of the world, Structure One was protecting something wonderful.

Each of the three rooms was painted, floor to ceiling, with elaborate murals. There are scenes that flow together and wrap around the corners, and hundreds of individual characters. Each room had a different theme: the birth of an heir, victory in battle, sacrifice and celebration. Taken in sequence, the murals tell a story of events that took place 1200 years ago, shortly before the city was abandoned.

Painted murals on the interior walls of temples and palaces were not uncommon in the world of the Maya, but that type of art almost never survives. The pigments degrade, the underlying plaster crumbles, and all that’s generally left are traces, perhaps a swatch of color, or an outline on ancient stucco. Bonampak is the singular exception to this law of the jungle, the one place where Mayan murals have been found largely intact, and the reason why can be traced back to a fundamental principle of chemistry. The debris in the doorways didn’t seal the rooms nearly well enough to protect the paintings from the tropical climate. Quite the opposite: rainwater pooled outside the building and seeped through the limestone walls, thoroughly saturating the murals. As the mineral-laced moisture evaporated, it left the surface of the paintings covered with a sheen of calcite, a hard, translucent glaze. This cycle repeated, over and over, building up layer upon layer of a coating that served to protect the paint and the plaster. If it had been planned that way, it could not have done a better job, with the net result that the murals are still with us, and in surprisingly good condition.  In the 1980’s, the Mexican government brought in a team of specialists who spent three years removing the coating, cleaning the paintings, and stabilizing the underlying stucco. The results of those efforts left the murals looking better and brighter than ever, but still fragile, and extremely vulnerable.

Bonampak was never a “lost city.” The temples have always been known to the local Lacandon Maya, who use them for religious purposes, but it wasn’t until 1946, when the villagers showed the murals to an outsider, that the rest of the world became aware of what had been preserved here. Since that time, the paintings have been extensively studied, using advanced techniques like infrared photography and thermal imaging, which brings out latent detail that can’t be seen with the naked eye. As exciting as this might be to a Maya buff like myself, Bonampak is not all that well known to the average tourist, and visitor numbers have always been quite low. On the day Mike and I went there, we had it entirely to ourselves, and because of that, the caretakers graciously allowed us to walk all the way inside each of the rooms, and to take our time when viewing and photographing the murals. When tour groups arrive, and the site gets even slightly crowded, everyone has to line up and wait their turn to view the paintings. No one is allowed to enter the temple, the way Mike and I did. There is a separate queue for each room, and when it’s your turn, you step up to the threshold, and peer in through the doorway. Each visitor is allowed just 20 seconds with each of the three rooms, and I’m told that the limit is strictly enforced. The point is to protect the murals from the moisture in our breath, which is a serious concern. 

As a photographer, capturing decent images in that temple was an enormous challenge, even without the restrictive time limit. The only light in those small rooms is what comes in through those small doors. You’re not allowed to bring in any photographic lighting, you’re not allowed to use a flash on your camera, and you’re not allowed to use a tripod. We were fortunate in having clear skies, at least, but those interiors were really quite dim. I set my cameras to a high ISO, used a wide open lens, a slow shutter speed, and I held my breath with each shot. How did I make out? I’ll let you be the judge. Follow along, and I’ll take you on a virtual tour, starting with:

 ROOM 1

1.) Reproduction of Room One by Latin American Studies.org; 2.) Composite photo of the lower wall

Room 1 is entered through the door on your left as you face the temple, and it is in this room that the remarkable story begins. The paintings travel around the room in four distinct segments, beginning with the panel nearest the floor. We see a procession of lesser nobles, including musicians, and men wearing elaborate god masks, lined up around the walls, against a bright blue background. Above them is a narrow band containing hieroglyphs on one side, and images of captives or menial workers on the other. Next is the widest, most impressive panel, in which we have Chaan Muan II, the Lord of Bonampak, presenting his new son and heir to the nobles of his court. These are clearly important personages, sumptuously dressed, each in a different costume, standing in a line before their ruler; each of the two longer walls features a separate, but similar scene, against an orange background. Finally, the vaulted ceiling, which is filled with designs representing the Mayan version of heaven, and images of gods.

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Original photos from Bonampak, juxtaposed with National Geographic’s meticulously executed, masterful restorations.

Click here for amazing 360º Street View of Room 1 © Google Maps

ROOM 2

Reproduction of Room Two by Latin American Studies.org

Room 2 is entered through the door in the center, and presents images that set a much different tone. These are battle scenes, in which the Lords of Bonampak vanquish seemingly helpless villagers for the purpose of taking captives. Captives were the fuel of Mayan society, the energy source that made it work. Slave labor built their monuments, raised their crops, transported their goods, and more. The pool had to be continuously refreshed, because the bloodthirsty Mayan religion required a constant supply of expendable humans to serve as sacrificial offerings to their gods. In one panel, Chaan Muan II, dressed in all his finery, grasps a terrified villager by the hair, as the man struggles desperately to free himself. In another, a row of bound captives sit weeping in pain, their fingertips dripping blood after their nails were ripped out. A corpse lies sprawled in the foreground, a realistic use of perspective. It was this panel, more than any other, that debunked the notion that the Classic Maya were a peaceful people ruled by learned astronomer priests. The Maya nobles depicted here were anything but peaceful.

ROOM 3

Last, but certainly not least, is through the door on the right. This is where the prisoners captured during the battles in Room 2 are sacrificed. There are celebrations, with music and dancing and gigantic hats that look like a collaboration between Dr. Seuss and Hieronymus Bosch. One of the upper end panels depicts a particularly graphic scene in which a group of noble women pierce their tongues with stingray barbs to draw blood, as an offering to the gods. The heir to Chaan Muan II, presented to the court by his father in Room 1, is seen here with his mother, preparing to participate in his first bloody sacrifice.

In addition to the damage caused by early visitors and their kerosene, there is other damage to the panels that appears to be vandalism: the faces of some figures have been scraped away, and on others, the eyes have been gouged out. According to scholars, this was in fact deliberate, but it wasn’t vandalism. Many of these painted characters represent specific individuals who lived in that era. The mutilation of their portrait may have been a way to nullify the power associated with their legacy. Such “de-Facing” of art was not at all uncommon among the Maya; it’s actually thought to predate Mayan culture, as it is a practice that originated with the Olmecs.

This scene of blood sacrifice is one of the clearest, most interesting images at Bonampak, and National Geographic’s restoration efforts have taken it up a full order of magnitude, revealing even the tiniest details. If slaves were the fuel that powered Mayan society, blood was the fuel that powered their religion. Many Mayan temples were originally painted red, and that’s hardly a coincidence.

 It’s almost unimaginable, but artwork such as this must have covered the walls of nearly every important building in the Mayan world, documenting the lives and the fantasies of all their kings in graphic, colorful detail. The Mayan cities as they appear today, pyramids and temples built of weathered limestone, the only color coming from vegetation sprouting in the cracks between the blocks; those ruins bear no more than a passing resemblance to the original constructions that stood on those crumbling foundations. The Maya loved color. The evidence of that is abundantly clear, especially when we look at the Bonampak murals. These places would have truly  been something to see, back in their glory days. (As long as you weren’t on the losing side of one of those one-sided battles.)

We only stayed at the site for about an hour and a half, but after we’d maxed out the time we were allowed to spend with the murals, there wasn’t much point to hanging around. It wasn’t all that late in the day. Not yet, anyway, but after all the explicit warnings about traveling MX 307 in the dark, we were anxious to get going. We thanked the caretakers for their kindness, and said our farewells, then made that long walk back to the parking area. The van that brought us from the highway was there waiting for us, and in what seemed like no time at all, we were back at my Jeep, safe and sound.

A FAST RUN BACK TO PALENQUE!

We knew what to expect on the drive back. Our old friend MX 307, only this time we’d be traveling in the opposite direction. We had enough time, so there was no real reason to be nervous, but even with the familiar road and no pressure, I had this niggling sense of dread, almost like we were being watched.  Considering the lawless reputation of the area, even back in 2015, it’s entirely possible that we were! Even so, I had no regrets about having come down there. Bonampak, our 14th (and last) Mayan ruin, was the one site that finally put a human face on the people who built all of this amazing stuff.

We came to the downed tree, still blocking the road (this time on our side of the highway), and another group of schoolkids who looked like they were waiting for a ride. In some areas, the road was like a tunnel through the trees. As always in rural Mexico, we saw plenty of “non-traditional” transportation. 

With Mike doing the driving on the way back, I was free to use my still camera to catch a few scenes along the road, in sharper focus. Like their Mayan ancestors, native people in this area are lovers of color. Beyond the more populated areas there were farms, rural homesteads, and verdant pastures, with horses and cattle grazing. It was a bucolic, incredibly peaceful scene, which made it hard to reconcile with everything we’d been hearing about trouble from smugglers and criminal gangs. 

We made it back to Palenque well before sunset, and headed straight to the Hotel Chablis for a couple of cold ones, and a little route planning. The first time we were in Palenque, we tried to drive to San Cristobal de las Casas, a charming colonial city on the other side of the Sierra Madre. Not only did we underestimate the time required, we also ran into that Zapatista road block in Ocosingo, and were forced to turn around. Tomorrow, we were going to try that drive again. The road was notoriously slow and dangerous, so we were looking forward to it! (Ha!)

Next up: Mexican Road Trip: Crossing the Chiapas Highlands to San Cristobal de Las Casas

The slide show below features additional photos taken on the road in Mexico by my inestimable shotgun rider, Michael Fritz. (Michael is responsible for many of the photos in this series of posts). Click any image to expand them to full screen:

(Unless otherwise noted, all other images are my (or Michael’s) original work, and are protected by copyright. They may not be duplicated for commercial purposes.)

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ON THE ROAD IN MEXICO

Mexican Road Trip: Three Days of the Dead in San Miguel de Allende

This post is a work in progress. Anticipated publication in January, 2025.

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IN THE LAND OF THE MAYA

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