Palenque 2: A Temple City Overgrown by La Jungla

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Archaeology, Regional History, Travel
Palenque Parque Nacional

The highlight of a visit to Palanque is a 15 minute trip out-of-town to the nearby Mayan ruins (Palenque National Park) which dates back to AD 600 or thereabouts. Our minibus unloaded us just past a sign saying: Carreteria a Palenque – Zona Archaeológica. This UNESCO heritage site is what put tiny Palenque on the international tourism map! We met our local guide for the day at the National Park’s entry turnstiles, stacks of people were already visiting the site when we got there around half-nine in the morning (Lonely Planet’s ‘Guessimation’ of over 1,000 visitors to the park on an average day seemed feasible).

The site map

The Palenque archeological site comprises an indeterminate number of temples within what was in its day a large Maya city with a plain on one side, a dense jungle on the other and the Rio Usumacinta running right through the middle of it. Before we hit the temple trail, Rafa our guide, who clearly knew his Mayan archaeology and antiquity, gave us a quick overview of the city using a cloth map affixed to a tent wall for illustration. Apparently Palenque’s original name was Lakamha (Meaning “Big Water”) – don’t think I quite got the significance of this name(?) unless it was a reference to the river which, not particularly noticeable today, may have been more significant in the time of the Maya. Like Teotihuacan on the outskirts of Mexico City, another indigenous civilisation occupied the site, predating the Mayans by maybe the best part of a millennium.

Temple bas-relief
Temple reliefs

Once we started exploring the site Rafa explained that most of what survived of the pyramids, what we could see still, was the work of the 8th century Maya king, K’inich Janaab Pakal, AKA Pakal the Great. Pakal’s long reign oversaw a major building program for the city. Probably the pick of the temples we saw was the one known as the Temple of the Inscriptions…the intact panels of the structure, which Rafa explained the significance of to us, contained important Maya pictorial inscriptions – these are a kind of ideogram, a single picture which equates with a word or an idea or a number. These symbols (adopted from the Olmec people by the Maya) put together formed a text. On the temples some of these glyphs (hieroglyphic characters painted on the walls) survive, although the Spanish Catholics destroyed a lot of them! The unique Mayan numbering system is also in evidence❈.

Temple of the Crosses

We did the obligatory adrenalin-driven thing that tourists do: sprinted up the steps of the nearest pyramid. Once at the top, nothing much to see, we proceeded more cautiously and slowly back down the narrow and slightly crumbling steps (themselves a mosaic of unevenly cut stone squares). It wasn’t permitted however to climb up the Temple of Inscriptions) opposite which some 80 feet above the ground held Pakal’s mausoleum. Rafa showed us some of the practical functions of the temples, for example the plumbing, as well as explaining the religious ones. Palenque is not as high and imposing as Teotihuacan’s “Sun and Moon” pyramids, but loses nothing in the decorative stakes. This is especially evident in the four edifices enclosing the rectangular square of the smaller Temples of the Crosses which boast elaborate, bas-relief carvings and sinewy interior chambers. At certain points Mayan relics lay around the grounds☀.

A city of temples under cover of jungle
We had some free time to spend scaling one or two of the less formidable pyramids before tiring of this novelty. As we followed Rafa back to the entrance, we swiftly and adroitly swerved past lines of souvenir vendors loudly hawking their wares on the pathway. Outside, the group regathered and were shepherded by Rafa towards a nearby trail heading into a denser part of the jungle. I mentioned above that the temples of Palenque were of indeterminate number. The reason for this is that virtually the entire ancient city of Palenque was swallowed up by the jungle some time after the Mayan inhabitants left the area (circa AD 800). What what we could see and explore was the small portion that had been discovered and unearthed to this point!

Rafa blending in to nature – at one with cedars & sapodilla

An ecosystem of diverse biodiversity
Rafa took us deep into a high evergreen forest along a path called Sendero Moiépa, pointing out different aspects of the biodiversity bank. The Palenque National Park was made up of 996 tropical species of flora and fauna…around us were millennium-old trees, red cedar, mahogany, kapok and sapodilla, as well as camedor palms including the threatened fishtail palm xate.

As we trekked along the muddy, sloping trail through ancient streams with fossilised shells, passing vines and unfamiliar plants, Rafa educated us as to the kinds of fauna that the jungle was home to…in all there were 353 species of birds – we caught glimpses of only the relatively easy-to-spot red-crowned parrots, unfortunately the very hard-to-spot toucans with their facility for changing the colour of their beaks to regulate heat were keeping their distance as usual. Another group of residents – the howler monkeys – were audible in full voice though not visible to us (presumably they were dangling high up in the canopy at safe distance but aware of the strange human visitors on the ground). Also not seen were the even more elusive ocelots, nor did we manage to see any of the 71 species of reptiles and amphibians including the very venomous pit viper, the Bothrops asper, which happily in this instance was giving us a welcome wide birth!

The temple, liberated from La Jungla!

After about 30 minutes of hiking we reached our main objective, a peak on top of which the skeletal ruins of a Maya temple was peering out of the jungle. This until recently hidden temple was discovered by local archaeologists. Rafa explained that tests had indicated there were undoubtedly many more temples buried under the jungle still to be unearthed.

Before heading back out of the Palenque jungle, Rafa invited us to explore an underground entrance point largely concealed by a rock ledge. Most of us took the challenge to climb down into the hole which led into a short, very tight and damp tunnel which came out at a shallow stream of water. I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to be looking for in the tunnel, a rare, fossilised Palaeolithic Age Mexican marsupial perhaps…it was too dark to see much of anything in the tunnel in any case!

Human “pack mules” doing the hard yakka…”Aspro, anyone?”

≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖≖
❈ Mayan maths were extremely accurate in calculating the calendar year at 365.2425 days, anticipating the much later European estimate of 365.2522
☀ when the archaeologists dug up Palenque they discovered small objects called censers lying round the Temples of the Crosses in particular. These are mainly brazing bowls made of ceramic used for making Mayan offerings to the gods

Palenque 1: Ambling about Town, Down Merle Green and Beyond

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Archaeology, Regional History, Travel
Big Maya

Towards dusk we reached the township of Palenque, our next stay-over on our journey to the easternmost tip of Mexico. The first thing we noticed in the area known as La Cañada was this giant native figure propped up against a tourism building (Carretera Catazaja Tramo Central Tuxtla). The massive sculpture took on a slightly menacing appearance to me, like someone you’d expect to find engaging in bloodthirsty, ritualistic Mayan human sacrifices.

H. Xibalba
Hotel decoration

Arriving at our lodgings (Hotel Xibalba) we found ourselves assigned to a separate section 100 metres down the road from the main reception area. The architecture of our dwelling was unusual, almost avant-garde, it certainly caught the eye…a small, sandy-coloured, two-level building with an A-frame shape, a design replicated in the shape of the large, outward-facing windows which gave the structure a very airy feel. The doors to each of the sixteen rooms conformed to this sloping pyramid pattern. The grounds surrounding the entrance to the sleeping quarters were tastefully decorated with authentic looking native sculptural pieces. The accommodation annex looked like it was a recent addition to Hotel Xibalba.

That night we acted on Hector’s dinner recommendation, leaving the Xibalba we ambled up Calle Merle Greene❉, past several cantinas and restaurants with picturesque displays of pot-planted flowers under their awnings. Around the bend we came to La Hector’s dining choice for the night. We partook of a nice seafood meal with a bit more Mexican cerveza sampling thrown in. At the end of the dinner while things were winding up, the guy who ran the restaurant, a German expat came over and engaged us in some small talk…he was quite a garrulous character, speaking in fluent English, he seemed very comfortable and relaxed, and exuded an almost a weary air of familiarity about all things Palenque (I surmised that he had been domiciled in Mexico for quite some time). After leaving the restaurant Eric and I slowly inched our way back to the hotel, taking in both the night air of this small town and of course the mandatory ice confectionary at the local “7/11” style store.

The next day my roommate Pétros and I decided to check out the old part of Palenque which wad down the road over a weathered, rusty bridge. This was definitely the poor part of town, as we walked I saw very few international tourists checking out this part of Palenque (too far away from the fancy tourist restaurants perhaps?). The faces we did see in the street were mostly indigenous ones – these are largely Ch’ol people (of Mayan descent)۞.

The shops were uniformly low-brow – no frills discount shops, cheap, grimy eateries and grocery stores. Lonely Planet gives Modern Palenque town very short shrift indeed – “sweaty, humdrum…without much appeal except as a jumping-off point for the ruins” [Mexico: Palenque, www.lonelyplanet.com]. No hyperbole here I’m afraid, compared to the “jawdropping jungle ruins” the town itself has precious little to recommend itself.

Silent Howler

The wilderness of la jungla is palpably close however. On the return walk back to the hotel, crossing the river heavily camouflaged with overgrown vegetation (in reality a barely trickling stream), I half expected to catch, if not a sight, the sound of local howler monkeys emerging from the forest scrounging round for food in the town (it had been reported that deforestation in the area was driving them into the city). Unfortunately none of the Alouatta critters put in an appearance during our walk, couldn’t even hear a murmur of their famous vocalising from far off in the jungle. Nor did we get a glimpse of that other local jungle resident, the jaguar. But the following day we’d be in the Palenque jungle itself, I thought, who knows, maybe we’d be a shot at spotting one of these fabled jaguares – but not too close of course!

Footnote:
Some perhaps less photogenic people are known to have been uncharitably labelled with the disparaging sobriquet of ‘Dishhead’…in La Cañada near the “Big Maya” mega-figure as you head back onto Highway 189, I noticed this modernist style street sculpture in the middle of the roundabout, which (art being open to all manner of individual and idiosyncratic interpretation) I like to call “Head in dish-man”, literally. That’s what it looked like to me anyway!

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❉ our street, so named for famous American artist and archaeologist, Merle Greene Robertson, who developed a technique of “life-size rubbings” which preserved a visual record of much of the Pre-Columbian Maya art in Palenque and elsewhere in Mesoamerica
۞ I didn’t know this statistically at the time of visiting but Palenque is the poorest city in the state of Chiapas. When I came across this snippet later, it clearly tallied with the empirical evidence of what we had observed – the shops generally rundown and grimy, some of the local people were a bit on the scruffy side, the dirt and refuse on the streets

Sydney Foreshore’s Animal House of Detention and Segregation on Hen and Chicken Bay

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Built Environment, Heritage & Conservation, Local history
⤴ Abbotsford, off Hen & Chicken Bay

On the tranquil foreshore of the Parramatta River near Abbotsford Point, some five kilometres by ferry from Sydney’s Circular Quay, sits a quiet, out-of-the-way park named Quarantine Reserve. The significance of its name relates to a unique and interesting connection it has with “four-legged immigrants” to this country…for three score-plus years (ca.1917-80) it was the quarantine station for all of Sydney’s (and New South Wales’) incoming animals from overseas. The station was located on a bluff which gently slopes down to the river at the quaintly named Hen and Chicken Bay. Prior to the animal quarantine station coming to Abbotsford, incoming animals were quarantined at Bradley’s Head on the other side of the harbour – in 1916 the site became the location for the city’s Taronga Park Zoo (hence the move to Hen and Chicken Bay in 1917).

⤴ The cow sheds on the bay side
⤴ What remains of the cattle stables today
⤴ As they once appeared during the station’s heyday!

Today, the animals and their rustic ambience are long gone, as is the medical equipment, the various machinery, domestic utensils, etc, but a good representation of the original property’s holdings remain, albeit in diminished condition. As you stroll through the green reserve whose name commemorates the vital role it once played in safeguarding domestic health from animal contamination, several animal enclosures are jotted across the landscape. In the centre of the reserve are two adjoining cattle stables comprising 24 separate stalls each with troughs, the doors were removed at either ends of the buildings long ago and quite a few of the panels have been vandalised or pulled out altogether. On the day I visited, the stalls had colourful balloons and ribbons appended to them, it was hosting a children’s birthday party! Next to the stables and connecting with them is the site of the cattle yard itself, now a vacant, grassless square.

⤴ The QS piggery

Just across and down the hill from the cow stables is a small faded green building with a worse-for-wear tin roof, this once functioned as a piggery…the pig pens contained food troughs and runs to allow the unfortunate porcine creatures some (very limited) mobility of movement✲. To the east of the cattle stables on the boundary of the reserve are the horse stables (10 in number). Over the years of the facility’s operation prominent international racehorses worth thousands of pounds (and later dollars) were detained here during their periods of quarantine.

⤴ What’s left of the two remaining dog kennels after a large tree fell on them

The enclosures for humans’ most favourite domestic animals (cats and dogs) have fared less well over the passage of time. The station’s dog kennels, numbered 83 when they were rebuilt in the 1950s on the side closest to the Bay, but now only two kennels remain! Even less fortunate for feline enthusiasts, the cattery has disappeared altogether! The same for the sheep runs (not really sure why in the 20th century there would still have been a need to import sheep into NSW – unless perhaps they were unusual, specialist breeds?)

⤴ QS incinerator – manifestly not one designed by Walter Burly Griffin!

A few of the quarantine station’s auxiliary buildings have also survived – including apparently a “dog’s kitchen”, a second kitchen where vegetables were cut up for the pigs, a storage block (the feed store) and a maintenance workshop. Also surviving near the eastern edge of the reserve is a rather unprepossessing structure, a scarred, sombre looking incinerator. Carcasses and animal excreta were disposed of here, although some dead animals were buried on the site including possibly a giraffe (unsubstantiated, could be a legendary urban anecdote?). At the Spring Street entrance to the quarantine reserve is the former caretaker’s cottage.

⤴ On-site info display contains a picture of ‘Hexham’

The Hen and Chicken Bay site before the quarantine station
Prior to the 2.8 hectare site being acquired by the Commonwealth Government in 1916 for the quarantine station❧, the site was occupied by the Hexham Estate with its residential landmark, ‘Hexham’, an 1880s Italianate Victorian property (originally the house was called ‘Emmaville’ by the Bell family, and later ‘Blanchlands’ by the succeeding owner, surveyor John Loxton). Around 1900 the estate was acquired by Lewy Pattison, a director of the early pharmacy chain Soul Pattison & Co. In 1982 ‘Hexham’ (located in Checkley Street on the northern fringe of the Reserve) was demolished after a fire severely damaged the property.

‘Hexham‘ ⤵

Animal quarantine station: postwar to 1980
The quarantine station operated until World War Two when it was temporarily closed because of restrictions on animal imports during the war, and reused by the military for storage purposes. Its reopening in 1945 was vocally opposed by residents in the surrounding Abbotsford streets who had long suffered the undesirable effects of the station’s proximity to them – their senses regularly assailed by the smell, the noise and the pollution (from the incinerator burnings).

In the ensuing years there were ongoing objections from residents and Council – in 1971 the local Commonwealth MP raised a request from Drummoyne Municipal Council about the prospect of the Commonwealth transferring the land to the jurisdiction of NSW Government so that the site could be converted into parkland. Despite the unpopularity with locals, it wasn’t until the late 1970s that a decision was made to move the animals out to a remoter site in Sydney’s outer west, Wallgrove. In 1980 the Abbotsford station was closed for good, and the following year it was turned into a park to commemorate the quarantine station’s historic role.

(Image source: Pinterest)

PostScript: Abbotsford’s and Nestlé’s grand mansion
Not far from the Quarantine Reserve sits an extraordinarily impressive mansion looking out on Abbotsford Bay. Fortunately this house, unlike ‘Hexham’ is still extant! Abbotsford House (situated on the Chiswick side of the suburb) has a similar heritage to ‘Hexham’, built for doctor and politician Sir Arthur Renwick around 1877-1878◘. If you approach the Victorian mansion from the waterfront reserve it is an imposing and most impressive sight, set in extensive grounds which abuts Wire Mill Park…bayside access to the palatial mansion is cut off by a artificially constructed canal running horizontally, giving the property a water frontage. The facade itself is a wonderful symmetrical design, a tour de force of dazzling architectural features (two storey front verandahs, imposing towers with tented roofs, elliptical arches and plastered columns, elegant steps and spired cupolas). Two plaster lions guard the front entrance with strategically placed classical sculptures decorating the lawns✧. “House of Nestlé” 1937 (Photo: RAHS – Adastra Aerial Photo Collection)

⤴ Abbotsford House

After Renwick was forced to relinquish the property in 1903 because of financial debts, it was bought by one of the principals of the Grace Brothers department stores. Then, just after World War I ‘Abbotsford House’ was acquired by the Nestlé company (operating at this time as the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co). Nestlé built a factory on the estate site which manufactured chocolate and the drink ‘Milo’, whilst the mansion itself served as the administrative centre of the business. The factory closed in 1991 and the whole estate was duly incorporated into a new medium-density housing complex (Abbotsford Cove).

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✲ seldom ever used apparently because of fear of an outbreak of “Swine Fever”
❧ prior to the Abbotsford location, the Sydney Quarantine Station was apparently situated on the other side of Sydney Harbour at Bradley’s Head, and was required to move because what became known as Taronga Park Zoo was established on Bradley’s Head in 1916
◘ the name of Abbotsford House’s architect doesn’t appear to be recorded anywhere
✧ Abbotsford House which gave the suburb its name, derives from ‘Abbotsford’, classics author Sir Walter Scott’s home in Scotland

Abbotsford Quarantine Station (1917-1980)

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50 Spring Street, Abbotsford, New South Wales 2046
Latitude -33.8483 Longitude 151.1228
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Publications consulted:
Canada Bay Connections, (City of Canada Bay), www.canadabayconnections.com
‘Abbotsford Quarantine Station’, 04-DEC-2015, www.historyofsydney.com.au
‘Top 10 Facts About Abbotsford, Sydney’, (Canada Bay Club), www.canadabayclub.com.au
‘Abbotsford House’, (Office of Environment & Heritage), www.environment.nsw.gov.au

The Road to Palenque: Ocosingo Pit Stop and a Diversion to Agua Azul (or should that be Agua Turquesa?)

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Regional History, Travel

The following morning we said goodbye to Casa Margarita and San Cristóbal and set out in a north-easterly direction for our next base Palenque which is close to the Mexican city eponymously known for its celebrated hot condiment, Tabasco.

Tope

By tope to Palenque
For the journey we “mini-sized” down from a full bus to a mini-van. The 212 kilometre trip on Federal Highway 186/199 took us, with two breaks, well over six hours, and introduced me to a new Spanish word, tope. The road was full of topes! About every 100m or so (it seemed that short a distance anyway!) the driver would bring the mini-van to almost a total halt and then ease it ever so slowly over a speed bump in the road. Some of the topes were in fact giant mounds of pavement! At time-to-time we’d see a highway sign that said ‘Tope’ (with or without a black-on-yellow diagram of three parallel humps), occasionally the sign said ‘reductor de velocidad‘. Either way the warning to motorists was clear, another ridge in the road surface coming up, so slow down again. The ridiculous frequency of the appearance of these topes made for a taxing, tedious slow drive.

Ocosingo, a brief respite from the bump and grind
We covered almost half the distance in this stop-go fashion before, to our great relief, we turned off Highway 186 at Ocosingo for (what time-wise was) brunch. The tour guide choose a little outdoor eatery perched up on a small bluff with a delightful view of the lush and verdant valley. Unfortunately, to put it plainly, the food didn’t come close to matching the view, it was pretty ordinary fare. The eatery was buffet style and every time you went to add something to your plate or get a new course, a little guy who looked like he was running the place would annoyingly rush over and ask what you wanted (I think he was, overzealously, keeping a check in case you snaffled anything additional to what you had requested when placing your order).

Banner site map

We left the gastronomically forgettable Parador Turístico Selva Maya and returned to our tope highway. About three-quarters of the way to Palenque we turned off on a side road to the right and followed the narrow road for two to three kilometres till we reached one of Chiapas State’s top tourist magnets, Agua Azul (Blue Water)…although as my blog heading indicates, the water of the (Xanil) River and its series of waterfalls are distinctly turquoise on colour, suggesting that the attraction much more accurately have been named Agua Turquesa❈.

Cascada las Golandrinas

Cascadas de Agua Azul: waterworks and wall-to-wall tourist stalls
The mini-van dropped us off at the entrance, near all the food outlets selling an array of paper-plated dishes including cocos fritos, empanadas and papas y frijoles. We made our way to the waterfalls’ viewing platform to witness at close hand the sheer volume of water spewing down the mountains from multiple waterfalls◘. The waterfalls here are made up of two sections, the more easterly one was smaller but comprised a series of large steps down which the rushing torrents flowed into the large pool of water at the base. Further down in a narrower stretch of the river the falls’ power had dissipated a bit allowing some locals to wade out with the aid of a rope strung across the water.

Thatched souvenir tienda huts

The topography of the Agua Azul site made viewing of the waterfalls more accessible…visitors are able to ascend up a hill parallel to the contour of the falls and gain different vantage points of the wildly gushing waters. The only drawback to this was that the pathway up was lined by untold number of tourism tienda huts, so on the walk up (and back!) we were pestered by hawkers either flogging their Agua Azul souvenirs or trying to entice us in for a meal – going up and back I became totally proficient at anticipating their predictable pitch and would hop in with a preemptive, firmly spoken No comida! (No meal!) to cut them off!✥

The falls’ steps

I asked two of the Americans on the Intrepid tour, Louisvillians Shirley and Phil, if the tourist hotspot had changed much since they had been there 36 years earlier. Unsurprisingly, over such a gap in time, they said the whole thing had grown exponentially. Most of the development since they had visited involved the vast spread of souvenir and food shops which had occupied only a minute proportion of the Agua Azul site in 1981.

Waterfalls in the jungle

Agua Azul is surrounded by dense jungle terrain, providing a bit of a foretaste of the jungle-engulfed archaeological site we were due to visit at Palenque the following day. When I got tired of taking photos of different points of the waterfalls, I spent the reminder of our two hours at Agua Azul strolling along the edge of the water looking at the riverine botanical features, I found it was the best place to dodge the tiresomely persistent souvenir sellers.

It was a relief to get back on the mini-bus again, but I managed to do so after running the gauntlet through a cordon of more over-zealous hawkers, this time a group of young girls gaily and colourfully attired in indigenous garb who had surrounded our bus and were clamouring for us to buy their local snacks. We settled down on-board for the 70km drive (over yet more topes!) to Palenque and our hotel for the next two nights.

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❈ clearly though with tourism being the name of the game I would readily concede that Agua Blue has a much more romantic and appealing ring than Agua Turquoise!
◘ as impressive as the volume was, I was surprised to discover that the 8.2 magnitude earthquake in September 2017 (only three months before our visit) had adversely affected the course of the river, causing the water level to drop alarmingly
✥ I should admit that my resolve to resist the souvenir buying impulse did fail, resulting in the purchase of three decorative wall pouches…I regretted it immediately as it involved me in a frustrating episode of trying to barter down the local seller, frustrating because she possessed neither a skerrick of English or a calculator!