In the quiet night, footsteps pass down the street outside my small hotel, like leaves gently settling to earth.
Soon this village, this small town of Santa Domingo Palenque, will stir into life. More roosters will sing, more dogs bark, and the first trucks and cars begin to growl. The Maya and Mestiza women will set out their produce piles, the shopkeepers crank open their shutters, and the first tourists will stir, seeking an early start to the ruins. In the heavens, above all this waking life, the blessed and blessing light of our sun shall paint the clouds and fill the town and countryside with brilliant illumination that seems so gentle in the morning, so strong and burning in the mid-day, and so soft and yielding in the distant afternoon.
Las ruinas de Palenque sit on their hillside like monstrous jewels, precious giants of crumbling rock, a double handful of enormous gemstones, a treasure chest left by ancient Americans, rediscovered by fanatic Europeans, groomed into shape by archeologists and their laborers, and now cleaned and watched over by a corps of groundskeepers, ticket-takers, gentle guards with walky-talkies, and... yes, much gazed upon by tourists.
Back and forth between the twin towns of the living and the dead, the scattered combis and taxis and colectivos and busses roll, one, two, then another, carrying their cargoes of visitors and local workers. Across seven kilometers the road stretches from Palenque pueblo to Palenque ruinas. Along the way lie acres and acres of pleasant looking pastureland that once was a pure tropical forest. An ornamental, yet functional, sidewalk follows the road all the way from town like a modern echo of some ancient Maya foot-road. Other paths lead from the back sides of the archeological zone, into the last deep jungle.
"Buenas tardes," ever polite in the late afternoon, a middleaged local man and this middleaged tourist will meet by the broken Templo del Jaguar, a short way up the mountain finger, somewhere behind the central plaza. Below them, the jungle stream Otolum shall whisper and gurgle over its rocky bed.
"The water has a very soft voice, no?" the tourist will say.
"Si, senor, muy suave." The man pauses, asks, "What nationality are you?"
"Estadounidense."
"Ah, si."
"And you are from here?"
"Yes, my village is six kilometers, over this mountain."
"Ah, well, then, this is your countryside -- entonces, este es su campo."
"Si."
Looking back, finishing this writing tonight, after another long day at the ruins, I know that this is what will have happened. This will be the chance encounter that will tell me so much, and make me begin to understand that I like the people much better than the ruins....
"So, have you tried any of the mushrooms yet?" Kyle asked me.
"No. I...."
"They grow around here. Go for a walk into the backwoods trails and little native kids will pop out and offer you some. Pretty damn good."
"I... I don't think my old body would take very kindly to that kind of shit in the hot sun."
He shrugged, lit a hand-rolled cigarette, offered it to me.
"So where you headed from here?"
"Merida, and Chichen Itza, then Coba."
"Ah... not Cancun?"
"No."
"You know," he sighed, "if you want any kind of drug in the world, you should go to..." and he named a town down on the west coast somewhere, "it's full of growers and dealers. They walk up to you on the street, practically begging you to buy. Kind of depressing, actually, now that I think about it."
"I don't think I'll be going there. No big ruins anywhere near."
Kyle laughed, "pretty of wrecks, human ruins, but no archeology."
"Heh."
"Hey -- you been to the Lost Temple here yet?"
"Oh... el templo olvidado?"
"Yeah. Always a lot of freaks there at sunset."
"Don't the cops hassle 'em?"
"Nah. They don't care about smokers or dopers. They're only interested in finding the smugglers and squeezing them for money."
"Shit."
"You said it."
I pulled out my plastic bag with bananas, oranges and bread. Offered it him. He took a banana. Ate it slowly, telling me about a wild Irish woman he met yesterday. "Said she'd be back here today around noon." He smiled. Then excused himself, wanted to go meet her in the main plaza.
I sat alone in the shade, enjoying the shadow. Then wandered back, across the creek, and on
toward the main group. Stood 
under a tree gazing at the palace behind the ballcourt. It was utterly beautiful. A man from
Chile stopped to talk. I took his picture with his camera. Nelson said he would be in Chichen
Itza on Friday and Saturday. Maybe we would meet again. Then he wandered on. I kept trying to
capture the fantastic vision of the palace behind the ball court. But no camera can equal the
radiant beauty. You have to be there.
You have to be HERE to understand.
After a while I went over into some other shade and sat under a wall, writing. Some of this and some of other days. I decided I will go buy my bus ticket tonight, for tomorrow night's overnight autobus to Merida. That will give me another, third day, tomorrow, to wander and sit and stare.
I get up and walk alongside the palace, keeping to the shade. Feeling hot. Little kids come and pester me, "Compralo de mi, compralo de mi..." Buy it from me, buy it from me. So I do. Little necklace bits of painted Maya calendar months. My birthday, it turns out, falls almost between two of the months. How good for them. They sell two. We babble in Spanish. I am feeling the heat pretty bad. They keep changing the prices on me. Finally I pay ten pesos apiece.
Some other tourists ask me if I am tired. I must look pretty bad. I pour water over my head. Climb up in back of the main temple -- the pyramid of inscriptions, and end up out on the front of it, sitting on a ledge, eating bread, writing, reading, and drinking water. In THE SHADE of course.
A guard climbs down. "What are you doing?" He asks in Spanish.
"Reading, writing, eating."
"Cuidado con el pan, hermano... it is against the rules to eat here."
"On the pyramid?"
"No. Anywhere in the zone. Only water. Or you may smoke a cigarette. But no food. The problema es el basura...."
His walkie-talkie crackles with questions. He speaks into it, "No, only a bit of bread, and reading a book and writing...."
Jesu. I am starting to be noticed. Nuh-unh, don't like that.
He smiles and leaves. I wait a while, then climb up to the top. Investigate the stucco reliefs on the temple piers. Then, descend into hell. Down the long staircase into the guts of the earth, to see the tomb stone, the great sarcophagus where Pacal, the pharoah(?!) astronaut(?!?!) manipulates his Atlantean space capsule up into heaven. Heh. He's really eating popcorn as he falls into the jaws of the Earth Monster....
Soon the blessed evening will come, and we too, will fall into the darkness of night. The little cooperativo vans will carry us back into town. I will eat at a small restaurant. The Spanish woman will see me there, and stop to talk for a few minutes. She will tell me how many monkeys she saw, or rather heard, in the jungle today. I will spend $200 (pesos) on a hammock. Stagger home to my hotel and fall into a deep, silent sleep.
Tomorrow will be my last day here. I'm glad I'm taking three days to explore and experience both towns, the pueblo and the ruins, the living and the dead. I mean, las ruinas son bonitas, yes, the ruins are pretty, magnificent, a treasure, and quite a sight, yes, but they are D-E-A-D, dead. Just a big piece of art.
Whereas the towns... the people... los pueblos y la gente... are alive.
Who woulda' thunk it? I came down south to see the Maya ruins and discover what? That I like the people better.
Yes. But... what was I saying? Oh yes, tomorrow will be my last day in Palenque. Gonna visit the ruins in early morning. Then pop back to town, check out from the Posada Bonampak, drop my big pack at the bus station luggage guarding place, go back to the ruins for afternoon and sunset, and then back into town for one final dinner before catching the bus outahere. Whew! I said it all in one breath!
