Mexico (Part 5)-Palenque and a beautiful hotel-Chan-Kah!
18 hours after leaving Oklahoma City, we finally arrived at a very small bus station in Palenque, Chiapas around midnight. As late as it was, there was a crowd of people boarding a few other
all-night buses to far away destinations that had names I couldn’t even pronounce.
We found a taxi in front of the station and agreed on the fare of $4 (40 pesos) and away we went, 20 minutes down the highway through the countryside. When we arrived at Chan-Kah Resort Village near the Mayan ruins there was only a desk clerk and a security guard, neither of which spoke English, but we managed to get everything set up and get to our rooms.
Chan-Kah Resort Village is set is a jungle like setting with lots of little casitas spread out in the trees. Here are some photos:
Look at the vegetation growing from the roof of our room
Our sitting porch outside our room
Here are some pics of the walkway through the property. You can click on them to enlarge
The room was large and very simple. We were pleased. We agreed that we had chosen a wonderful property. Take a look at their web site:
Since we were traveling so light, the first thing we did was wash our clothes by hand and hoped they would dry in the humidty. This was all part of the master plan: travel light and wash our clothes as we went. Once you get used to this system, you will never want to travel any other way–At least I don’t!!
I have to admit, my biggest fear about this trip was: would Carol be able to stand up to the rigors of traveling light, quick, washing clothes by hand, buses, language barriers, and be able to deal with the uncertainties and challenges of a trip like this? So far, she had received an A+. It only gets better from here!
Next-The Mayan ruins of Palenque! Incredible!
See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:
Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/ Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/
Caribbean island of Barbuda: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/
San Juan with a 5 hour layover: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/
Fly around the U.S. for the day: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/
Mexico (Part 4)-Villahermosa-ready to leave!
We went into the packed waiting room of the Villahermosa bus station-it was obvious, we were the only gringos there. By this time we were exhausted. We had been traveling 14 hours.Our original plans had us having a nice leisurely dinner in Palenque by this time of night, but we were still 3 hours away.
I decided we had better call the hotel, the Chan-Kah Resort Village, and let them know we would be late. I had the phone number but I couldn’t make the call go through on my cell phone. Finally, I asked two guys sitting behind to help me. They spoke no English. In Spanish, I told them what I was trying to do and showed them the phone number. They started crossing out unnecessary numbers and told me to try the new combination—it worked!!
When the hotel answered the phone I could not understand anything they were saying in Spanish. I finally just stated my problem and on the other end I heard “no problema”. I knew I had gotten my point across!
Inside the waiting room was a little tiny convenience counter that sold some snacks. I bought some water and cookies. In the Villahermosa bus station we ate the romantic dinner we had previously planned to eat in Palenque……cookies and water! Life was good!
Inside the Villahermosa bus station-It’s crowded!
Carol went to use the restroom and came back telling me there was a charge of 3 Pesos to use it. I was running low on Pesos so I had to tell her to quit drinking water!! It was time to board the bus.
Villahermosa bus station-boarding the bus
At 9 p.m. we boarded our bus and were finally on the way to Palenque. I immediately struck up a conversation (in Spanish, of course) with the guy sitting across from me and found out that Villahermosa is the city that was almost completely underwater 8 months ago. They have done a marvelous job in cleaning it up. You never would have known.
Next-Headin’ for Palenque town!
See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:
Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/ Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/
Caribbean island of Barbuda: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/
San Juan with a 5 hour layover: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/
Fly around the U.S. for the day: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/
Mexico(Part 3)-Villahermosa-Speak Spanish and bring Pesos!
Mexico-Chiapas, Tabasco & the Mayan Ruins of Palenque-cont’d
Unfortunately, there was a major accident on the highway leading from the Villahermosa airport to downtown and we got tied up in a HUGE traffic jam. I watched the time tick by and knew we had missed our 7:30 pm. bus. Unfortunately, I had purchased my bus tickets on-line from the U.S. for the 4:30 p.m. bus so now we had missed two buses. However, before leaving the states I was in telephone contact with my daughter, Stephanie who was advising me as to my options on alternate bus times through the website:
So, I knew there was only one more bus at 9 p.m. that night to Palenque. At 8 p.m. we arrived at the Villahermosa bus station, shook hands with our new best friends, Bruno and his wife, and went inside. It was raining outside, hot inside, and it was a packed, noisy, chaotic bus station with long lines. I finally made it to the ticket window and gave the clerk my reservation number. She spoke no English but my Spanish was passable enough. She told me I had forfeited my original prepaid ticket because I had missed the bus, but she would sell me 2 seats on the 9 p.m. At that point we only wanted to be on our way so agreed to buy two tickets and didn’t argue. They were only $5.50 each.
The neat thing about the Mexican bus system is you get to select your seats at the time of purchase. I selected seats 9 & 10—don’t ask me why, they just looked like good seats! I pulled out my Visa to pay and was told: “we don’t accept credit cards (in Spanish of course). I offered to pay in US Dollars—nope, don’t accept those either! Fortunately, I had stashed a few pesos that were left over from a previous trip to Mexico 3 years ago into my backpack before we left home. It was enough to pay for the tickets.
BTW-I will be adding some interesting photos to these blogs on the trip to Palenque and San Cristobal de las Casas so don’t lose patience with me!
Next-The Villahermosa waiting room! Carol needs pesos for the bathroom!
See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:
Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/ Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/
Caribbean island of Barbuda: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/
San Juan with a 5 hour layover: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/
Fly around the U.S. for the day: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/
Mexico (part 2)-flight to Villahermosa-A stranger offers us a ride
Mexico-Chiapas, Tabasco & the Mayan Ruins of Palenque-cont’d
Part 2
There were no seats together on the plane to Villahermosa so I ended up in a different row than Carol. I was in the middle seat between 2 great people: Carlos, a financial analyst for a big construction company in Mexico City and Bruno, a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company who lived in Villahermosa. I bonded with both of them instantly with my limited Spanish and their limited English. For 1.5 hours we conversed like we were old friends.
Our problem was we only had 1 hour to make it in a taxi from the Villahermosa airport to the downtown area to catch a 7:30 p.m. bus to Palenque and that was cutting it close. Plus, I had made my bus reservations on-line in the states and was unfamiliar with the process of checking in at the bus station and claiming my reservation.
Both Bruno and Carlos offered to drive us to the bus station upon landing. Bruno’s wife was already going to be at the airport waiting on him so he insisted we ride with him. Upon landing, Carol was waiting for me inside the airport since she had already gotten off the plane. I introduced my new friend Bruno to Carol, and told her we were riding with him to the bus station. She gave me that “what in the world have you gotten us into now” look. After all, Bruno was a complete stranger and we were taking him up on his offer of a ride? Of course, Bruno also needed to explain to his wife that he had just met me on the plane and they would be taking us to the bus station. It’s part of that great Mexican hospitality. Ya gotta love these different opportunities to meet people when you travel!
Next-an unexpected delay on the highway –
See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:
Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/ Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/
Caribbean island of Barbuda: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/
San Juan with a 5 hour layover: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/
Fly around the U.S. for the day: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/
Mexico(part 1)-A trip to Chiapas, Tabasco, & the Mayan ruins of Palenque
This will start a series of blogs about a recent trip my wife Carol, and I took to the Mayan ruins of Palenque in the state of Chiapas, Mexico which we combined with a week of Spanish school in the picturesque town of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southern Mexican mountains.
The state of Chiapas is the southermost state in Mexico and shares the border with Guatemala. It is known as the “Mayan Route” because so many people visit the many Mayan sites that run all the way up through the Yucatan.
Carol was anticipating a nice leisurely plane ride, being picked up by a driver to be driven between towns, taxis, etc…….WRONG!…This would be a trip of planes, buses, catching colectivo vans along the highway and washing our clothes by hand along the way. My motto: “travel light and quick”.
“He who would travel happily must travel light.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944)
So grab your backpack and let’s go to Mexico!!
The trip started out from OKC with only carry-on luggage on American Airlines connecting in Mexico City to Mexicana airlines for a flight to Villahermosa in the state of Tabasco where we were to catch a bus to Palenque in Chiapas for a couple of days, then another bus to San Cristóbal to spend 5 days.
Things could not have gone worse starting with a mechanical delay in OKC and having to switch to the next flight, making it to DFW only to have that flight leave late, causing us to miss our connection in Mexico City. We had to traverse the airport in Mexico City 3 times between Aeromexico, Mexicana, and American Airlines trying to get a flight to make it to Villahermosa to catch a bus to Palenque. We were told all flights out of Mexico City were sold out for the rest of the day. Mexicana told us we would have no chance of getting out on either of their last two flights of the day, even on standby.
A very long story in short is that we pleaded(ok, begged), half in Spanish and half in English, with the Mexicana gate agent to get us on a flight so we could get to Villahermosa that night in order to catch a bus to Palenque. At the last minute she gave us two seats and we were on the plane, but absolutely exhausted from the ordeal in the airport.
Next-The flight to Villahermosa and a stranger on the plane offers us a ride–
See my other travel blogs on NewsOk.com:
Colombia:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/colombia/ Mexico:http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/mexico/
Caribbean island of Barbuda: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/barbuda/
San Juan with a 5 hour layover: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/san-juan-puerto-rico/
Fly around the U.S. for the day: http://blog.newsok.com/thewanderer/category/day-trip/
