Palenque

Another long day on the road, we started early and kept on until we got to Palenque.

We filled up water and drove up the ruins dodging the touts offering guide services.

It was free for the kids but the adults had to pay entrance for the ruins (109 pesos) and the national park (95 pesos). We drove to the top of the park and parked on the side of the road. Some dude wanted money for him to watch the van. I had read about this. It is not sanctioned by the park but they are an organized group. He wanted 200. I said 50. I told him it was free to park and he nodded his head and accepted my offer. The parking lot where we had parked my motorcycle 10 years ago is now for vendors. Fortunately it was a short walk to the ruins.

We bought some clay necklaces depicting the Mayan zodiac for the kids for 10 pesos each.

It was 93F and humidity was stifling. I remembered this last time too. But we had arrived in the afternoon so it was hotter than last time. We went to the main ruins and avoided walking back down hill to the museum and having to walk back up to the RV and called it done. The guy I paid 50 pesos to was still near the RV so I said thanks and headed back down. We had planned on camping at one of the numerous places on the road that had options for camping on ioverlander but the pool had a lot of algae and the other places were not great looking and hotels in the town were only $50 with a pool. Guess what we chose to do? First we drove through the Centro and passed the markets which was challenging with the massive RV. We went down a couple one way streets against traffic. We passed by the hostel we stayed at last time which is now a restaurant.

Ellie's reaction upon hearing We were staying a hotel.

Dd's reaction when Ellie gave him the rest of her Sprite.

 

Ellie tried and enjoyed street tacos for the first time which means I had the spaghetti Bolognese that I had ordered for her. She said tacos are tied with ramen for her favorite.

the RV was close enough to use the starlink from our room

I booked a hotel with pool down the street and we jumped in the pool for a couple hours.