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January 4-5-6-7:
I need your passport! I will take it to TAG and they will
pass it bthrough immigration.
Thursday January 8
07:00-8:00 - Meet at my house, for a
briefing in the VIP Departure Area
08:00 - Two
buses leave for La Aurora airport
09:30 - Check-in
at TAG, Private Aviation side of La Aurora airport. Our own
private flight.
10:00 - Departure for Tapachula
Please note that you can bring up to 35 pounds of
baggage!
The usual $33 Guatemala departure tax that is
included in your routine flights out of Guatemala, is also included in the
cost of our trip, as is the $44 Mexican departure tax when we return.
11:00 E.T.A. Tapachula. Get from the plane, pass Migracion.
Get back on the plane to Palenque.
14:00 - Arrived in Palenque. Two buses from
Palenque airport to the
Chan-Kah Resort
Village. A quick check-in and a table in reception
to pick up a sandwich and a beer, water or soda as you go to your cottage.
You can relax in your cottage, swim in the beautiful pools, or use the
hotel's restaurant and bar during the afternoon. The quicker our
flight is, the more time to relax.
Your room has A/C, TV, a ceiling fan, an outdoor patio, and is set in the
jungle. But modern conveniences, such as the bar and restaurant, are
close by. There is room service and poolside service.
INTERNET:
with your laptop, i-Pad or phone, you will detect Wi-Fi in your room.
It is the main line wireless transmission to the hotel from the town and, as
much as I tried in April, the hotel's IT guy could not let me into it. It is
encrypted. However, it feeds Wi-Fi which you can log into in the reception
area ... plenty of seats. They said it works in the restaurant also, I
did not try this. But it worked fine in the reception area.
17:00 - 17:30 Open bar, beer, wine, water, sodas, next
to a conference room to the right of the reception area. This is to
the right of Reception. Please get
your drink and bring it in to join us for a presentation.
17:49 - Sunset
17:30 - 19:00 -
Welcome to Chiapas!
Presentation by Tomas Barrientos, head of the Archaeology
Department at the Universidad del Valle. What was Palenque, Yaxchilan
and Bonampak in the Maya world ? What are we going to see tomorrow ?
How does it relate to things we know in Guatemala ... Tikal, El Mirador, la
Corona, Tak'alik Ab'aj. Q & A with Tomas, and I imagine we may stretch
it a bit, as Marion Popenoe Hatch, coming with us on the trip, may help with
the Q & A.
19:15 - two buses leave from
just outside the conference room for the stream-side
Don Manuel restaurant in Hotel Nututun, a few kilometers away.
There will be a buffet dinner. It's a
very nice place, with friendly service. Lorraine and I have tried it
in April this year.
When we get back home, please go to sleep ... tomorrow is a big day!
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Friday January 9
06:00 - coffee by the Reception
06:30 - Two buses leave from the reception area. This will
be a long day.
06:40 - Sunrise
08:00
- Breakfast in
Restaurante Valle Escondido in the Chiapas jungle, heading toward the
Guatemalan border. This is drug-trafficking country, but on the
Mexican side, from personal experience, I know it is heavily policed to
protect the tourists. All totally safe. Mexico impresses me how
they do things.
09:30 -
Corozal, Mexico-Guatemala border. This is the wild-wild West all over
again. Smuggling, drugs, illegal emigrants, and affluent tourists all
there at the same, but do NOT blend together. The tourists always come
out safe and never notice anything.
We get three high-speed boats
to take us down the Usumacinta river, Mexico on the left, Guatemala on the
right, to Yaxchilan. A walking tour of
Yaxchilan,
a splendid late-classic Maya site, where the river makes an almost 360 bend,
the land sticking into Guatemala, but Mexican territory.
We then get
the boats for the return trip, slower up the stream.
14:00 -
lunch in Corozal, with beers, sodas,
water, etc.
15:00 - buses leave for Bonampak
Bonampak is one of the
most amazing Maya sites, it was a dependency of Yaxchilan, but the fame it
has earned comes from the frescoes, some of which we will see (in small
groups). In addition to being amongst the most well-preserved Maya
murals, the Bonampak murals are noteworthy for debunking early assumptions
that the Maya were a peaceful culture of mystics, as the murals clearly
depict war and human sacrifice.
19:30-- return to our hotel, late, but dinner will be waiting
for us.
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Saturday January 10
08:00 breakfast at the hotel
RELAXATE!
Morning. You can relax in your room or swim in the pools.
But, I have also arranged a bus to leave the hotel (16-18
seats) at 9 and 9:30 and 10 a.m. into the town of Palenque. It will go to
"Che", no, not Che Guevara, but the new local branch of the
Chedraui
supermarkets, in case you want to sightsee, shop, buy Mexican things (it has
ATM machines). The bus will return at 10:30 and 11:00 and 11:30.
12:00 - a simple lunch at the hotel
13:30
- two buses leave from the reception for Palenque, only one kilometer away.
We will visit the Palenque museum first, with Tomas Barrientos. Then
the "ruinas de Palenque". These are mobbed by crowds in the morning.
In later afternoon, it gets cooler and the crowds go away. We will
probably pay for staying past the closing hour of 5 p.m. to have the site
pretty much to ourselves.
17:50 - sunset
18:30 - two buses leave Palenque for
Restaurante La Selva. A big Mexican meal and Mariachis! Viva
Mexico! Enjoy! |
Sunday January 11
07:30 - breakfast at the hotel
08:00 - check-out.
09:00 - Two buses will take us to Villahermosa,
150 kilometers away.
11:00 -
"La Venta"
Park, Villahermosa. This is where the vast majority of the Olmec
treasures, found as oil-drilling reached the remote state of Tabasco in the
1920's and 30's are now located. We visited the actual site of La
Venta, north of Villahermosa, last April, but it is empty, all the treasures
are either in Mexico City or in Villahermosa.
A presentation by
Tomas Barrientos, in an air-conditioned room they have in the park. It
will be a little crowded, some people may have to stand. A guided walk
around the site.
14:00 - outdoor pic-nic lunch in
the park.
15:00 - two buses to the Villahermosa
airport.
16:00 - leave for Guatemala, E.T.A.
17:30
Buses will
wait to take you to Antigua and drop you off at your house. V.I.P.
service!
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Why should you join the tour ?
First, Palenque, Yaxchilan and Bonampak are among the most spectacular Maya
sites. But they are two days' drive from Antigua and the roads are full of
hundreds of "topes", making progress extremely slow. We know from
experience, we drove to Mexico City in April and returned via Villahermosa
and Palenque. If you look at the distances, they do not seem much, but
just to road from Palenque to San Cristobal de las Casas, 200 kilometers,
should take 2-3 hours, but takes six. We will fly over all that in our
own plane.
Second, when you get there, you get a guide.
We will, too. But we will have two expert archaeologists with us.
Marion Popenoe Hatch is coming as a fellow traveller. Her best
student, who has taken over her Department of Archaeology at the Universidad
del Valle, who was our guide at La Corona last year, will be coming with us
and will make a couple of exciting expert presentations to set the places we
will see, Maya and Olmec, into perspective. After the Maya sites, we
will visit the Olmec statues in Villahermosa.
Third, this is "Archaeology in Luxury", with a nice hotel and meals and
drinks in nice restaurants.
Links of interest:
Yaxchilan
Bonampak
Palenque
"La Venta"
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