Palenque: a stunning archaeological site in a less than ideal location

All prices in Mexican pesos ($). £1 = $24.34 at time of writing - DEC 2025

It was frustrating getting to Palenque from San Cristobal De Las Casas. I assumed that it would be simple: hop on a bus down the 199 road, see the mountains of Chiapas slowly give way to humid jungles, arrive in a quick 6 hours. However, that wasn't the case. Federal highway 199 is notorious for blockades from protesting locals, so much so that it's highlighted in orange on the UK government's travel advice page, meaning we wouldn't be covered by our insurance if we traveled along it. Even if we tried to ignore this advice and risk having to pay the "donation" needed to pass any roadblocks, we couldn't - the only bus we found that goes from San Cristobal to Palenque avoids the road entirely, traveling through Tuxtla Gutiérrez and Villahermosa instead. 

After briefly flirting with the idea of having an overnight stay in Villahermosa to break up the journey, we decided to suck it up and head straight to Palenque. All going well it would only take 8 hours. We left San Cristobal around 9.30 in the morning and made it to Palenque bus station just before 6pm. Although it would have been a long enough journey that a night-bus might have made sense, it’s unfortunately not recommended in the Chiapas region due to highway robberies and possible corruption during border checks. Our journey was smooth enough but I did find that my bag had been searched at one of the check-points along the way, making me feel a bit uncomfortable. 

We had splashed out on a slightly fancier hotel halfway between Palenque town and the archaeological ruins; we wanted a head start on seeing the ruins in the morning and it would give us the best chance to see the howler monkeys that inhabit the area... plus it had a pool. As it was already dark when we arrived to the ADO bus station, we didn’t fancy making the 4.3km journey on foot. Luckily, there was a heap of taxis waiting out front, and after a brief stint of haggling we agreed on $80 for the journey. 

The next morning, after a night of broken sleep due to the cries of howler monkeys and the accompanying cacophony of howling dogs, we had a quick and disappointing hotel breakfast before slathering ourselves in suncream and heading out the doors.

In a stroke of luck that rarely happens, a colectivo arrived almost immediately after we reached the road, so we didn’t have to wait at all before heading towards the ruins. From our location, it cost $20 each to reach the Palenque ruins ticket office, and although I still consider that a fair price, it was also much shorter of a journey than I thought it would be. On many blogs I’d read, the ticket office was located nearby the museum, and the colectivo would drop you off to buy the tickets before taking you to the site entrance. The new ticket office was almost 2 km closer along the road towards town, and to get to the site, another more expensive colectivo ride was needed. 

At the ticket office we first paid the ruins entrance fee of $100 each, and then we moved to the next window to pay the parks fee of $215 each - it wasn’t exactly expensive but the costs had gone up since they last updated their website. Not interested in paying $60 per person for the colectivo on top of this, we dodged the guides wanting to convince us into taking their tour and began the walk along the road to the site. I don’t want to admit that we immediately regretted it, but we were relieved 10 minutes later when a colectivo pulled over and offered us a spot. Slightly chagrined, we didn’t initially ask how much it was going to set us back, and were pleasantly surprised when were charged just $25 each. 

It was 8.15 by the time we entered the archaeological grounds and already it was sweltering hot. Not letting a bit of stickiness get in our way, we headed along the path and started exploring. Unlike Monte Alban, there was no clear route and the building placement appeared way less regimented giving the site a more natural grown feel. Many of the informational plaques narrowed in on very specific details of the buildings we were looking at, rather than their age and function in general. From what I could gleam, Palenque was a Maya city-state and functioned from the around 200 BCE before it’s decline in 800 CE. Since it’s abandonment, it was slowly reclaimed by the surrounding jungle before being tentatively explored by Spanish in the 18th century and excavated more thoroughly in the 1950’s. Still, only 10% of the site is thought to have been fully discovered and many buildings are still hidden within and under the jungle surrounding the main site. 

The first structure we came across when we entered Palenque.

We enjoyed the areas we could explore, weaving along the jungle lined paths, and discovering the range of moss-speckled ruins. Many of the larger pyramids and structures had set areas on them that were allowed to be climbed, allowing us to glimpse into rooms inside and on-top of the buildings. Unlike sites we had seen before, many of the pyramids here had rooms inside that were used as tombs. When inside, it was clear to see doorways that had been blocked off and bricked over, piquing my curiosity to what the rest of the building contained. Of course, views from above were amazing too.

Ben looking over the view from on top of the Temple of the Crosses.

I don’t know whether it was a fluke but it was so quiet while we visited, there were times whilst wandering some of the more out of the way structures when there wasn’t anyone around at all. There were still guides offering their services nearer to the beginning of the park, but at least the merchants had been corralled into one area making them easier to avoid. It actually made me want to browse the souvenirs, unlike in Monte Alban where being randomly approached by people wanting to sell me things made me run away. Once we had our fill of exploring, we headed to the jungle walk that took us past some of the less excavated buildings and a rope bridge past a waterfall. Despite all the “do not swim here” signs it was hard to resist temptation, the humid jungle air hadn’t gotten any cooler and climbing up steep stairs certainly hadn’t helped either. 

Moss covered ruins hidden away surrounded by dense jungle.

After exploring the site we had wanted to check out the museum, but annoyingly it was closed. Our site tickets would have normally allowed us to entry but it was Revolution Day - a fact that hadn’t really clicked in my brain during the planning. Oh well, it doesn’t always go exactly to plan! With the afternoon still ahead of us we decided to walk the hour back to our accommodation, we were hoping to spot those elusive monkeys but sadly that wasn’t supposed to be either.

With nothing else in the area catching our attention, we decided to really make the most of the hotel we treated ourselves to and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the pool. We did venture down the road later on for dinner.  I would pretend we chose the pizzeria for its jungly location (and possible monkey sightings) but it was genuinely well rated and nothing else in the area really appealed. We slightly over-ordered and ended up with two gigantic pizzas but it served as good fuel for the march with our backpacks to the bus station the next morning. 

I enjoyed our time in Palenque, and would highly recommend visiting the ruins there… but only if you’re already going to be passing by. The ruins themselves were nothing short of amazing, the impressive pyramids set against the backdrop of the lush jungle felt like walking into a film set, just unreal. However, as it was the only thing in the area that we were actually interested in, it felt a bit like a gamble to make the trip specifically for these ruins. It worked out: we had fun, but looking back we probably spent too much money for it just being one activity. Route wise it made sense for us, to get to our next destination in the Yucatan peninsula we would have passed Palenque by and it would have been a shame to have missed it. I feel like i'm flip-flopping so i'll leave it at this; unless ruins are your thing there are definitely other archeological sites that are equally or more impressive in much more convenient locations but Palenque was still pretty cool.

We never did see any monkeys.

Trust me, it's only perspective that's making that pyramid in the background look small!