Breakfast was at Don Mucho's, the only place in the village that was open, and the menu looked pretty good and cheap. Maria went for the healthy option of a smoothie with a slice of toast. David went for the standard breakfast but was surprised at the size of it- a mountain of scrambled eggs, a bowl of beans and a stack of tortillas.

On the main road, we jumped into a colectivo to take us the 4km up the road to the Mayan Ruins. After 5 metres the colectivo came to a halt, a National Park Guard wanted an entrance fee from only the two us. Everyone else in the vehicle looked Mexican and didn't pay, so it's safe to assume that it was a tourist tax, we did get a colourful wristband in exchange for our money though.

The road up to the ruins was relatively flat and we noticed a few tourists were walking instead of paying 10 pesos (about 1NZD or 0,60EUR), they were in a for a shock though. After 2km of the road started winding steeply up the hillside that all the tourist books had written about being the spectacular backdrop to the site.

This place was quite different to Chichen Itzá, there wasn't the huge modern, concrete entrance. It was more like a shelter with a couple of turnstiles taking you to a path under the jungle canopy. Eventually we were met by a wall of stairs, at the top of the stairs was a huge clearing, maybe the size of 5 football pitches with structures nestled into the jungle at the edges - a very spectacular first glimpse of the Palenque Ruins.

The obvious differences between Palenque and Chichen Itzá was the drastically reduced number of visitors here and being able to climb on the structures. The not so obvious, was that Palenque was purely Mayan whereas Chichen Itzá is mixed Mayan and Toltec. They were both equally as hot making finding shade a necessity.

There were over 10 temples and a Palace that could be climbed and explored. The steps on these temples are not the same as you would expect at home either, each step would rise about 40cm so it was a serious workout for the legs getting up and down them all especially in the unforgiving heat. The views from the top were spectacular and well worth it though. The best overall view of the area was from a small modest looking Templo de la Cruz Foliada in the Group of the Crosses. One of the temples, containing the tomb of the 'Red Queen', was open for viewing but like the pyramids of Egypt, was overbearingly hot and humid.

Once we had seen all the ruins,we walked down a path through the jungle, past a couple of waterfalls towards the exit and the museum. The surrounding jungle was supposed to still be home to howler monkeys, toucans and ocelots but we didn't hear or see any of them. The museum was actually quite good, not too many exhibits to overwhelm and bore you. As we left the museum, a group of people were staring up at a tree - a group of howler monkeys were fast asleep in the upper branches, no wonder we hadn't heard any over the siesta period.

It was only about 2km from the the museum to El Panchán village, so we decided to walk back down the road. It wasn't a particularly tough walk but in the heat of the afternoon, a much needed cold beer went down a treat at the end of it.