From Palenque to Merida

After San Cristobal de las Casas, the travel winds were pointing at Palenque..

Palenque is basically two “Palenque”s:

A travel book will tell you that Palenque the town is just a hopping place for Palenque the ruins, and that’s what the plan was: use the town to hop to the ruins, stay one night and then leave.

After half a day at the ruins, I was done with ruins for the rest of the trip, and decided to skip Chichen Itza (was planned for a few days later)… Some pictures came out of this:

Palenque "Inscriptions Temple"

So the afternoon turned into a relaxed sit-down at a local cafe in Palenque the town, first watching domino players battle each other, and then deciding to venture into asking to play a game or two (ended up 4th of 4 in the first game, and 3rd of 4 in the second). The whole thing cost me 2 coffees for the 2 winners.. An excellent experience overall, and a good practice of the Spanish language for anyone who feels like they need it.

Domino Miguel

Domino table... the winner watches the losers battle

Later in the evening, I got to learn the meaning of the word “la caminera” — that’s the drink that you get after deciding to leave, and end up staying for one more (in my case, it was of course a Michelada)

I also tried convincing a Dutch “beer purist” to have one of those excellent mexican confections that include a spicy sauce, lime juice, salt, ice and beer.. You guess who ended up drinking it..

Sweaty Palenque had 6 more hours in store.. Had to rent a dormitory bed to shower before taking the 11pm overnight bus to Merida. After a few nights in posadas and buses, it’s time for a hotel.. Gran Hotel is the choice.. After all,  Fidel Castro stayed there

Merida is a whole different experience.. First, it’s no longer Chiapas… it’s the Yucatan. Merida is a city of more than a million people, yet has the charm of a purely Mexican place (except for one Burger King). I really liked Merida at night and got to take a few photos that illustrate my experience there..

The Dance Practice - Merida at night

The waiting waiter

"Face to face" - These seats are all over the Yucatan state :)

Last but not least..  a big “Thank you” to the Mercedes Benz workers and engineers that contributed to making those wonderful buses.

If you haven’t been on a Mexican “First Class” bus, here’s a quick summary:

- Excellent seat comfort and recline angle.

- Dubbed (or subtitled) movies playing really loud (On the trip from San Cristobal to Palenque, it was the french movie “Wasabi”

Next stop: Valladolid

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