Palenque or bust!

There are several options available to reach the city of Palenque: the luxurious OCC bus (very expensive), join a tour that ends up there (also expensive), and lastly there is the option to leap frog colectivos from one small rural town to the next until you reach Palenque. We felt to be the best possible anthropologists we could be, and most practical, would be to travel like the locals do. So around noon we began the first leg of our journey to Palenque from San Cristobal. Fifty pesos and two hours later we were in a small village named Oxchuc, from there we rode in the bed of a truck that had a vinyl cover to protect us from the elements. We were joined by a rather inebriated man named Alejandro who delightfully kept us entertained with his unintelligible drunk ramblings. We were slightly concerned about whether Alejandro was going to have issues keeping his lunch due to the bumpy roads, but surprisingly he managed just fine. Sonja on the other hand, who has a history of motion sickness, didn’t fare so well. As we passed through the windy mountain roads Sonja missed out on the sights of waterfalls that emerge out of the cliff walls because she had her head out the back of the bed leaving a trail behind us. The next stop between us and Palenque was the town of Ocosingo, famous for being the bloodiest site of the Zapatista uprising. We ate some delicious yet questionable grilled chicken sold off of street side grills. We were glad to find out that the next vehicle to Palenque was a roomy van, we felt this would be the most comfortable for Sonja since she was already feeling lousy. We were wrong. About forty-five minutes into the ride Sonja gave the people seated behind her about a five second warning before sliding open her window of our colectivo. We apologized for the rough forms of transportation, but the payoff was about to be worth the sacrifice. The jungles of the lower elevations were becoming thicker the farther we traveled. Rivers flowed under bridges as we crossed over them. Vines hung from high up branches and the trunks of giant trees were wrapped in leafy lianas.

Once in Palenque we gathered ourselves and our belongings and headed to El Panchan, the cabanas we stayed at before that are nestled into the dense foliage. I had our party halt for a moment as we rolled our luggage down the dirt road because in the distance I picked up the sound of howler monkeys. We stood there in silence for a minute to take in the roars of these primates. We booked our room, walked over a stream and passed through Don Mucho’s, the main restaurant at El Panchan. We followed the red footpath deep into the woods where we arrived at our second story cabana. The room was basic, four double size beds arranged side by side facing a blank yellow wall which had no art to speak of. The windows were mere screens with cloth drapes that covered the lower half. The bathroom consisted of a toilet, shower, sink, and mirror. There are no frills at El Panchan and we would have it no other way. Around sundown the howler monkeys began their primal singing once again. We tried spotting them in the branches through our windows, but could only make out their outlines. The plan for our time in Palenque was to stay two nights to give ourselves a full day to enjoy the ruins, jungle, and museum. Amber’s body had other plans.

The next morning we ordered coffee for breakfast, but weren’t able to drink it because my sister was having terrible internal pains. So terrible in fact that we grabbed the first colectivo into town to take her to the nearest doctor. Our colectivo driver was kind enough to take us off his route to a doctor he recommended. He then waited to make sure Amber was taken care of. The doctor felt she was in need of more assistance than he could provide and told us to go to the general hospital at once. We packed into a taxi and found ourselves at the local hospital.

People could be found everywhere around the hospital- in the waiting room, sitting outside the ER entrance, outside the building. It was confusing to understand how the system functioned, but Amber’s urgent condition was evident so we were seen somewhat promptly. A man who we presumed to be a doctor and several med students came in to witness the diagnosis. It was unclear what was afflicting my sister, but he ruled out Appendicitis. This didn’t solve the problem of her pain though. Amber squirmed and even vomited from the pain. They then decided to lay her on a gurney in the hallway and hook her up to an IV drip. We were then left alone and not spoken to for quite some time. Later we were asked to pay for the consultation and visit, which came out to around $40. Amber felt a little better so we went back to El Panchan.

Her pain had subsided for the moment, but was about to make an even stronger comeback. We left Amber to rest in the room when we returned. During her nap we three stood under a troop of howlers as they vocally battled a neighboring troop, hiked to a jungle stream with a local boy, and walked back as fireflies lit up our path to our cabana. We returned to find Amber back in pain and in need to revisit the hospital. Back at the hospital a different crew was on staff and the guessing of her affliction began anew. This time Appendicitis was an option and surgery was being considered. Very frightening circumstances especially due to the frantic nature of all the nurses and staff. We were even told by a nurse that there was no anesthesia available. Amber was once again left in the hallway with a tube inserted into her arm to receive a liquid drip. There was nothing we could do for the moment, so we went out in search of internet to contact our family. When we returned the diagnosis was becoming clearer- kidney stones. There wasn’t much that could be done except to have her stay the night and tough through the pain. We reluctantly left our wounded soldier behind and hoped for the best.

The next morning Amber was feeling much better and was able to be released. We had not yet been to the Palenque ruins and Amber felt that in a day’s time she might feel well enough to walk around, so we booked another night. Our original two night stay in Palenque had turned into a five day venture.

Early the next morning we attempted the breakfast-before-we-go-to-the-ruins thing, this time a success! We all felt energized, hydrated, and full. Off to the ruins we went. We visited the museum, got a little history about the ruins, took the old entrance through a jungle path, and came upon the white plastered structures of Palenque. Faith and I showed off some of the interesting attributes to Mayan architecture we have learned about during our time here. For example, structures with long staircases have an acoustic quality to them where when a clap is made near the front, an echo reverberates off the structure that has a sharp high trill sound. This was supposedly done to mimic the natural call of the quetzal bird, the sacred bird of the Maya. We showed Amber the chamber of the Red Queen, the dark tunnels of the living quarters, the royal plaza of the captives, the observatory, and explained as best we could the meanings of the stone carvings.

Our day was full of excitement and we were just as excited to take a nap and recuperate from all the heat exhaustion. We were going to stay one final night in Palenque and then head back to San Cristobal. We are now coming to the final last days of our time in Chiapas, but we have big plans for what we will be involved with- volunteering/staying with cacao farmers, Tapachula, and volunteering/staying at a sea turtle sanctuary. You can expect a final entry or two about our last week very soon.