Villahermosa, Palenque Town

The road from Catemaco took us into the state of Tabasco, where the weather changed. Winter is the dry period of the year in Mexico, but here it began to rain, so much that the water seemed to exceed the carrying capacity of the forest. It was steady, relentless rain. I arrived late at night in the city of Villahermosa and made the mistake of renting a hotel room just across from the bus station, in an establishment whose only advantage was a discount for those who left before six o’clock in the morning.

I’m sure that under better circumstances, Villahermosa is a pleasant and atmospheric place. It has a riverwalk and an extensive pedestrian quarter downtown, and an energy that is a product of its heavy traffic; but the rains forced all of the mud and soot to percolate to the surface of the city's concrete infrastructure, and left residual puddles on the sidewalks. It's only in retrospect that I notice all of the green.

Those with more time can visit a replica of the Olmec site of La Venta, where several of the famous giant heads are on display.

A couple of hours to the east is the border into Chiapas. The horizon narrowed as the trees drew closer together, and it didn’t seem entirely unreasonable to believe we had indeed entered a different country. Small farms with animals in the yard were the prevailing sight. The town of Palenque is on the border between the mountains to the south and the low, flat Yucatán peninsula. During the classical period of the Mayan civilization, it was near the western boundary of their cultural influence.

There are establishments of practical use to modern residents on the outskirts of the town, but its center is dominated by backpackers who come to see the ruins. I was rather nervous to be entering a major tourist site after more than a week in exile away from my compatriots, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that for the most part, the visitors were an agreeable bunch who were respectful of their hosts. It was even more to my relief that many of them preferred to speak Spanish. A large majority were from Europe, which is not surprising when you consider that we were a long day’s drive from any major airport, and the average American tourists are not known for their patience.

The long main street in Palenque is given over to hotels and internet cafes, and it continues into ranch country with a paved walkway that leads to the ruins. A few armed soldiers are stationed at intervals, which is the only surface evidence of the Zapatista rebellion of 13 years ago. Tropical birds take over the town square during the night. What the town may lack in historical authenticity it makes up in a kind of zany sense of humor, as evidenced in a restaurant that serves Mayan pizza.

The rains continued, so I delayed a trip to the ruins in favor of reading English novels and catching up on e-mail. There were reports from home of 70-degree weather in January, the funeral of Gerald Ford, and tentative gestures from the new political leadership. And, of course, the continuation of meaningless war. The news I saw in Mexico had been mostly domestic, and a welcome escape from the adrenaline-fueled reports on global violence that pass for geopolitical analysis in America. An exception was that the Mexican television stations appeared to be obsessed with replaying the video clip of the hanging of Saddam Hussein. This was a fairly annoying way to force everyone’s head to turn in bars, since it wasn’t exactly easy to look the other way.

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