How Not To Visit Ruins

Palenque and Chichen Itza, Mexico

Sometimes you go with the best available information, and you end up getting it horribly wrong.

I had planned my route from Chiapas to the Yucatan with the express intent of visiting some famous ruins. First up was Palenque, buried in the jungles of Chiapas. Palenque was an ancient Mayan city dating from the 3rd century B.C. By all accounts the jungle setting made it one of the most picturesque Mayan sites to visit.

I had read that heat and crowds were the biggest barriers to a pleasant experience in Palenque. So I booked a hostel just down the road from the ruins and woke up super early to hike out there.

In my haste to beat the heat and crowds, I also passed up opportunities for breakfast and coffee. Those were mistakes numbers 1 and 2.

I was staying about as close to the ruins as you can stay, but that was still a couple kilometers down the road. Supposedly a pleasant 20-30 minute walk. Except that in the early morning "cool" time of day it was still 80 degrees out. So let's call not taking a cab mistake number 3.

Before the entrance to the site I came upon a trail into the jungle monitored by a Lorenzo. He informed me that I was supposed to buy my ticket back at the museum I had passed (mistake 4), but if I wanted he would lead me along the trail and I could pay at the entrance to the ruins.

The jungle trail ended up being the most enjoyable part of my experience. Lorenzo told me about the different animals he had encountered in the jungle, and we stumbled onto a family of howler monkeys feeding in the trees. It was only about a 20 minute hike and it came out near the entrance to the ruins.

When I entered the ruins my back was soaked in sweat, my stomach was grumbling, and my mind was stuck on coffee. I felt so miserable that I didn't even last 2 hours. I explored about half of the site and then found a trail that led me to a side exit. At which point I said screw it and left to seek air conditioning.

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Chichen Itza is the most popular ancient Mayan site in Mexico. It is located on the Yucatan peninsula, within tour bus range of Cancún and Playa del Carmen. I had booked a hotel room in Vallodolid, the closest major city to the site, with the intention of arriving early to beat the large crowds.

But after my unpleasant early bird experience in Palenque, I took a different approach at Chichen Itza. I slept in late. I ate breakfast and drank coffee. I took a 10am bus out to the site, arriving just before 11am.

The line to enter curved around the entrance and out into the parking lot, about a kilometer long. But given that my only other option was to hop on a bus back to Vallodolid, I figured I'd wait in line. An hour later towards the front of the line a site employee walked by telling everyone that the line I was in was for Mexican nationals only.

It was a Sunday, and apparently on Sundays Mexicans can visit Chichen Itza for free. Not so for extranjeros. I switched to the line for foreigners, which was much shorter but did not seem to be moving at all.

Behind me in line was a latin-looking couple arguing loudly in English. The man wanted to know why the woman would wear such an ugly hat in public. The woman wanted to be comfortable and out of the sun and what the fuck business of his was it what hat she wore. At this point I surrendered. I retrieved my earbuds from my bag and put on a D4 record.

After 2 hours of waiting in line I finally made it into the site. Problem was, I didn't care anymore. You could barely see the ruins behind all the people taking selfies anyway. So instead of taking ruins pictures I took pictures of people taking selfies. I laid down on a bench in the shade and listened to music.

♫ The world turns to a desert as you pray for rain. ♫

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Maybe I would have enjoyed these sites better if I had paid for guides. As it was, the most profound thought that occurred to me was that seeing evidence of antiquity didn't appear near as important to the throngs as being seen near evidence of antiquity. I wonder if future generations will remember the teens as the age of the selfie.