Palenque Package? Cabins? Ayudame!

November 8, 2009 4:17 PM

I am going on a trip to Mexico next year and I'd love to go to Palenque. Friends of mine from Mexico recommend getting a package tour. I generally dislike package tours but I'm not sure how to find the best flight price, accommodation in VillaHermosa, trip to Palenque, and accommodation there. Anyone have any tips for how to get there, how to book, how long to stay, where to stay etc?

A friend recommended staying on a cabin in Palenque but googling shows every one having extreme reviews of either "Loved it, best place in MY LIFE" or "Never stay here, terrible!".

We've also heard varying advice for how long to stay in Palenque, from 2 days to 7 days.

So I thought I'd ask the hive mind for Palenque travel tips!

posted by Admira to travel & transportation (9 comments total)

Unless you are massively into the minute details of precolumbian archaeology & architecture, I'd suggest that one day on the site itself would be enough. It's a nice place - more jungly than other major sites in the Yucatan - but is really a core of well-preserved / restored buildings within a small area, and if you wanted you could probably explore them all on foot within an hour or two.

I stayed in the town nearby - I forget what it was called...Palenque Ruinas? It was dead easy to find a room there, and to pick up a minibus from the town to the ruins; after all, the ruins support a lot of the local economy. It might have been about half an hour each way - easy enough for you to check online.

There were a few cabin-type places along the road between the town & the ruins, which seemed to cater for backpackers after adventure-type activities (horse riding, hikes, kayaking etc). If that's your thing, you could probably stay a few days or more, but - like I said - the ruins themselves are only really a single-day thing for most people.

Getting there & away? Mexico has plenty of buses going all over the place, mostly modern & on good roads. Easy enough to get around if you have a tiny bit of spanish and/or have any experience with independent travel.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:55 PM on November 8, 2009

So to give a bit more clarity around my problem, I've been told that I'm going in a busy time of year and that I should book everything NOW... if not YESTERDAY! So I'm a little worried that if I don't book now I'll miss out.

Problem is ... how do I find a flight from Monterrey to Villahermosa, book accommodation in villahermosa, book the bus from there to palenque, book accommodation in palenque, book the trip to the ruins, and back again? I can find several expensive options, I can find some cheap but maybe not so great options ... so I'm hoping to get more options.

Links of sites used to book/investigate would be much appreciated!
posted by Admira at 8:14 PM on November 8, 2009

I should also add my Mexican friends don't know much about comparing flights/accommodation in Mexico and want to do everything either through package deals (which are expensive) or through "friends" who are travel agents, who never seem to respond to emails/phone calls.
posted by Admira at 8:34 PM on November 8, 2009

I took the second class bus from San Cristobal de las Casas, and it was one of the most memorable trips of my life. Busses will be better now than 25 years ago, when I travelled. A very long trip, though.

I stayed at Motel de las Ruinas, but that is closed now. I suspect it will be very easy to get a room in the town of Palenque, which has an OK zocalo but little else to recommend it.

I spent 3 days at the ruins and it was both enough and not enough. I could have seen more. I sent into the hillside jungle, where there are a lot of unexcavated structures and that was a lot of fun.

I would say, go, however you can get there. It's magical and since it's against a hillside rather than on the flats like most Mayan sites, it's more interesting (at least to me).
posted by Danf at 8:51 PM on November 8, 2009

I was there in April of last year. When are you going? The busy season was winding down, or so I was told.

I stayed at the cabin type places UbuRoivas described. Pretty cheap, there were a few bars on the grounds ... actually had a great night watching a band from San Fran who had biked all the way down with their gear. I actually walked to the ruins with another guy ... maybe a 40 min walk up the road. I'd disagree that you will get everything you want from them in a few hours. The feeling when you're wandering around in there is quite impressive and deserves some time to fully soak in.

I got there on a bus from San Cristobal, like Danf, and when I was finished there all I did was book a flight leaving the next day from Villahermosa back to Mexico City ... caught a campanero (I think thats what they are called - the random vans that drive up and down the rural roads and you flag them down and pay a few pesos to get where you're going) to town, bus to Villahermosa, plane to Mex. City, bye bye! No packages or guides or anything necessary.
posted by mannequito at 9:36 PM on November 8, 2009

Going early January. I'm kind of stuck between my natural instinct, which is just to work it all out when I'm there, my traveling companions (who are from Mexico) who tell me that's crazy - its the busiest time of year, my inability to find resources for booking flights/buses/accommodation and everyone telling me "don't miss it whatever you do!"

That plus lots of advice like "just get a flight" - which airline won't be booked out that time of year? How do I compare those prices?. "Just get a bus once you've gotten a flight" - do I need to book that time of year? If so, how? If not, its easy to find where they go from? "Just get a cabin close to Palenque" - which one should I get? Will I need to book or can I just rock up? etc etc etc.

Normally I just google/lonely planet it until I work it out but I'm getting a lot of conflicting or just really vague advice with Palenque for some reason.
posted by Admira at 9:51 PM on November 8, 2009

I'm not sure when the busy season is (American & European summer holidays, most likely) but over Dec-Jan I never had any problems hopping off a Mexican bus & finding a hotel within minutes.

But it sounds like maybe you're not so comfortable with that kind of backpacky randomness, ie you'd prefer to have everything booked in advance? Nothing wrong with that; some people crave that kind of certainty, others avoid it - depends on your personal preference.

As for the ruins, don't let me put you off. In my case, Palenque came after a bunch of others (Monte Alban, Tulum, Chichen Itza, Uxmal, um, I think there were one or two more, and with Guatemalan sites still to go) so you can get a bit blase after a while. In Egypt, they call it Pharoahverload.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:04 PM on November 8, 2009

I loved Palenque! It was suggested as a destination by a friend a few years ago and we flew into Villahermosa in September 2007 with him and his girlfriend with no reservations booked and really pretty minimal planning. If you're going around that time of year and things haven't changed radically, I don't think you'll have any trouble at all finding accommodations; it wasn't deserted by any means but we were able to wander into the bus station and get on a bus to Palenque, where we easily found a great place to stay in Chato's Cabañas.

Chato's is located at El Panchan, which is a small complex of restaurants, lodging and a little tour operator situated a mile from town and right on the edge of the state park that houses the ruins. I would strongly recommend staying there, it's conveniently located and the cabañas themselves are amazing: under $20/night gets you a little thatched hut in the middle of lush jungle with an adequate bathroom, wire mesh windows and geckos running around on the ceilings chasing after the marvelously huge spiders that are free to roam in and out (probably don't sleep in the jungle if you're arachnophobic.) Ours was near the "pool," which was a huge concrete tub filled from a garden hose and inhabited by a turtle, which we later learned had just escaped from the keeping of an employee's son.

Don Mucho's restaurant out front has reasonable food and is socially lively with lots of international travelers and live music every night. At night, when the gate guards have gone home, you can also walk down the road onto the park land where you'll find a quieter bar (I'm racking my brain for the name) with a slightly higher locals/tourists ratio. It's on the right shortly after the lighted sign for the youth hostel (which is also on park property, I don't know anything about staying there but it's technically the closest lodging to the ruins.

Getting to the ruins themselves from El Panchan was about another mile's walk, or you could choose to hop on one of the many collectivos (taxi vans following a fixed route between the town and the ruins that take on passengers for cheap.) You have to pay a day rate for park entry at the gate and then another rate for your ticket into the ruins proper, neither was very expensive. You will be approached by guides offering their services, we turned them all down and they were polite about it.

We spent about 5 days total in the area, including a day trip to Agua Azul and a while exploring the town of Palenque itself, which is a very un-touristy small town. We did a lot of walking around, had some meals in hole-in-the-wall restaurants with mostly enjoyable results (don't go to the Japanese place. ¡Hay gusanitos en la sopa!)

Here's my photo set from the trip. We had a great time, the ruins were amazing and the little museum is worth a visit too. Definitely wander off into the jungle a bit, there's a lot of unexcavated city left around the edges of the manicured park and experience of stumbling onto the millenia-old, vine-covered walls of a stone structure in the middle of a jungle while howler monkeys roar above you is indescribable. I would try to spend a couple days there if your plans permit.
posted by contraption at 10:04 PM on November 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Awesome contraption, that's exactly what I was after... thanks very much for sharing!

Thanks also to the other respondents. I am very much the "work it out as the trip goes along" type but I usually travel by myself, this time I have to convince others to go along with the idea, I think this thread will help!
posted by Admira at 7:42 PM on November 9, 2009