I sat at a table with a Mexican tattoo artist who was traveling with his drug dealing friend in a hostel located in Palenque, Chiapas. At least, he told me he was just a tattoo artist in the beginning.
The Guy and I began asking him about places in the Yucatan and it turned out he was very well traveled, giving us liberal suggestions for the best cenotes (sinkholes filled with water), Mayan ruins, and other areas of interest. He’d lived in Cancun for several years and could understand English but didn’t speak it.
I asked what he’d done there and he furnished a video of himself standing in a deep hole hand-mining amber out of the ground. Apparently amber is in high demand and is dug up and sold mainly to China for jewelry making. In his backpack, he had pieces of all shapes and sizes. We were sitting in the dark of night and when he held a light to some of the pieces, it caused them to glow in the dark. It turned out the impure pieces of amber were photo luminescent.
I’d imagine he was harvesting the amber illegally since he did not have a Chinese representative to sell to, but was turning the pieces into jewelry and selling them himself.
Immediately, I associated the mining with negative environmental consequences and exploitation of poor land owners (and upon further research I was correct). If I bought it, what did that say about me? I had a moment as I struggled between getting my piece while I still could and thinking of myself as the type of environmentally conscientious person that bypasses diamonds as a statement. But in the end, my human need to have something precious for the sake of a memory won out. I participated in the necessary evil required to be a modern day consumer. Dammit.
I just wrote 4 drafts about that moment and each one felt incomplete, boring, or just didn’t capture what I was trying to say. So I’m scrapping all of it and going to talk about what we did instead. Let’s back up out of Palenque and away from the miner and go back to Villa Hermosa first. In Villa Hermosa, we went to La Venta to see the giant Olmec heads.
These guys are of super importance because they were 1 of 6 founding cradles of civilizations on planet Earth. That means this is where it all started in the North Western hemisphere! We don’t know too many specific details about them, but imagine a group of people living in a thick tropical jungle, trying to survive amidst jaguar attacks, and they had their shit together enough that they started carving gigantic heads out of stone.
Pretty impressive right? What’s more impressive is how heavy they were. The head with closed lips weighed 58 tons! What were they moving these rocks with?
There were smaller ones as well:
They revered women enough to allow them to also become warriors. Whatever, or whoever, this represented got her own statue:
They also found ways to make extra elaborate tombs. I’m fairly certain rocks aren’t often naturally shaped this way, so it’s another testament to their progression.
There were all sorts of archaeological relics. Some of the rocks were half finished and it’s unclear why the projects were abandoned. Others had taken a toll against the elements and were half crumbled. But many of them had intricate carvings and significant meanings that we’ll never be able to fully understand.
The park itself was beautiful.
But there were also a lot of mosquitos. So many, in fact, that it was the only place we’d been where they were selling repellent at the gate. I applied all over my body, but missed the side of my arm. Those bites swelled up for over two weeks and it was absolute torture. But it’s the last time I’ll forget to spray the side of my arm, so there’s the silver lining.
These coatimundi where everywhere. Little babies dug their noses into the ground looking for bugs. I bought a bag of local chips and threw one out to a coatimundi. It wouldn’t stop following me after that so I sat at a bench to feed it but it kept getting inordinately close to me. Then another one ran up beside the other and it seemed like a fight might ensue if I didn’t dish them out fast enough. I looked at The Guy pleadingly to help me out of the situation after he told me it would happen. He took the bag, dumped a large half of it out on the ground, and we ran. The adorable sound of their wild teeth crunching on chips had me giggling as we ran away.
Another couple on a bench had fed two others. The coatimundi jumped up on their bench digging through the empty bag and cups as the woman leaned back. It seemed I wasn’t the only one to fall prey to their cute tactics. The entire scene just made me laugh harder.
After that, we changed the oil in the car and ate a whole chicken (natural sized, not pumped-full-of-hormone sized) for dinner.
After several days, we left Villa Hermosa, Tabasco and continued onward to Palenque, Chiapas. There was an eco-tourism hotel zone (Zona Eco-Turistica de Cañada) which consisted of two incredibly nice streets with comfortable hotels and restaurants. It was the first time I’d had an egg with a runny yolk in months. I didn’t know you could miss eggs with runny yolks so much. The hostel we stayed with (Yaxkin) ran on solar and had liberal amounts of signs asking people to be mindful of their consumption. It was a refreshing thing for me to see.
Palenque itself was located inside a National Park. We drove there and explored the ruins, 90% of which are still uncovered.
The main temple was still intact. We climbed to its top and walked around its large rooms. Imagine when the temple was still adorned with these:
It must have been very exciting for the team who first came upon the ruins. I’d imagine the original structure was quite the sight to see. Imagine transporting a Mayan into this time period to show him what remains of his beloved temple. The shock of realizing the Mayans fell to some other power would be just as shocking as the fall of America would be to us. Mayan civilization wasn’t localized to just a few areas. There are ruins everywhere. We drive by remnants of them between every destination.
Down the street from Palenque inside the National Park, there was an animal conservation center. These wild pigs were penned up and when I got close, they snapped their tusks at me. They reminded me of Hawai’i and my family of boar hunters I left behind.
The animals at this facility clearly didn’t receive as many visitors as a zoo. They interacted and were curious about us more often than not. One monkey sat and watched me from his treehouse but when I began walking away, he clambored quickly down the tree.
When I walked to the other side of his preserve, he also went around. When I was out of sight, he started screeching. Maybe he was new and lonely, or maybe he was just a bratty monkey; I guess I’ll never know.
After the park, we returned to the hotel zone and enjoyed a flavorful meal. Food in this area was better than we’d had for awhile. It was a welcomed indulgence. We also lounged in the common area meeting other travelers, including the miner.
Several times during our stay, we ventured out of the hotel zone and bought groceries, did laundry, and walked through their large market. It was a pleasant place to be for 5 days.
And now, I’ll conclude this post and leave you with this picture to think about:
Thanks for reading!
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