Palenque town

I´m writing this in the town of Palenque, just a few miles away from the famous ruins that I plan to visit tomorrow.

It´s a gaudy tourist-trap sort of place, one great mass of day-glow signage offering accommodation, food, tours, internet access and souvenirs. There´s nothing much to do here, and it´s very scruffy, but I´ve quite warmed to its jolly atmosphere.

The five-hour journey here from Campeche, which I was quite sad to leave, in a way, took me from the flat tree-filled plains of the Yucatan peninsula to the rolling pastures of Chiapas, Mexico´s southernmost state.

Much of the landscape I´ve seen so far seems to be fields full of cows with neat hedges, small stands of trees and streams meandering along tiny valleys. Just as I was thinking it reminded me of Wales we drove over a bridge, and there on the riverbank below was a large grey crocodile, curled up like a tractor tyre.

I also noticed that most of the grazing cows seem to be accompanied by two or three snow-white Indian runner ducks, who dart around their feet puddling in the mud. I guess that when the cows rip up the grass they reveal grubs and other tasty morsels.

As well as watching the changing landscape I started reading the Popul Vuh, a sacred Mayan book that describes the creation of the world and mankind.

It was written in about 1700 by unknown Mayan scribes in their own language, but using our Latin alphabet that had been taught to them by Jesuit priests. Whether this accounts for some of the startling similarities with the Bible is impossible to say.

So far I´ve read about God (Kúcumatz) speaking the word and so separating the sky from the earth, and the land from the sea. Women being tempted into naughtiness by strange fruit on centrally-located trees, oceans parting to aid the escape of the righteous, lost tribes, lamentations, manna from heaven and global floods sent to extinguish unworthy early attempts at creation.

Such uncanny links have always attracted colourful theorists to the Mayan civilisation, and these people have always gravitated towards Palenque.

It was first visited by a Spanish priest, Father Ordóñez y Aguilar, in 1773. He set the ball rolling by publishing a book that announced the city to be, along with ancient Egypt, an heir to Atlantis.

Later the eccentric Count Frédéric de Waldeck, an associate of emperors, admirals, pirates, queens and cut-purses, lived in one of the temples for two years until 1833. Over this time he compiled a fraudulent tome filled with fanciful drawings in a Mediterranean style, designed to bolster his belief that the Mayans were a sister race to the Greeks and Egyptians, again parted at the destruction of Altantis.

Later Von Daniken got very excited about the lid of Pacal´s tomb (the city´s greatest king who reigned for an incredible 68 years), which I have mentioned before (with photo, below). He said it clearly showed an astronaut preparing for take off.

Although these ideas have more or less been snuffed out by the recent decipherment of the Mayan heiroglyphs, there is still a lot of mystery there. One example is the Tomb of the Cross. Although we can now read that the cross depicted on a freize is the Whack Chan (the world tree that supported the 13 levels of heaven, the surface of the earth and the nine levels of Xibalbá, the underworld) it is still strikingly like a Christian cross. It is even topped by a bird, like the Holy Ghost, but this one has a more vicious beak.

Anyway, this tradition of nut-case visitors clambering over the ruins will continue tomorrow when I get there.