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Hells bells, no one's ever gonna see this but seeing as we're all such good friends I thought I might as well share it here and, I dunno what, feel happy when someone says, "cool!" or "bravo"? Feel sad when someone says, "you ŵanker"? Oh, laugh out loud and giggle giggle giggle... Please enjoy. :-) Palenque man! I been wanting to go there for about a decade ? ever since some New Age bearded hippy dude waxed lyrical on a beach in California about disappeared Mayans and magic mad energy vortexes on his way down there for some guided-by-dreams pilgrimage of his ? so when The Independent said, go, write us some stuff I didn?t need no second invitation. I booked me a cheap ticket on Thomson ? ?243 for a round-trip flight to the island of Cozumel, just down from Cancun ? Mexico?s Benidorm ? and less than twelve hours after waking up in a cold and drizzly Camden morn I was eating some massive fish cocktail (ceviche) on the beach in Playa del Carmen, toes in the Caribbean and bright blue sky overhead and, man, this is the life. Palenque is a 12-hour bus ride ? and you can do it overnight, to skip the cost of a hotel ? but I?ve always thought buses rather a boring way to travel ? I mean, you just get there, right? ? so instead I decided to hit the road hobo-style and thumb it. Okay, so maybe it takes slightly longer and there?s something like a ninety percent chance of murder or kidnap but I know no better way to travel. I mean, how else you gonna find experiences like: riding wild on the back of a mad-hatted fruit-filled pickup truck winding through mountains and overtaking lorries on blind bends staring down hundreds of feet drops to burned-out cars, their former now ghostly inhabitants now roadside white crosses, then deposited big-haired and grateful in middle-of-nowhere burning Mexican sun begifted with several ripe pineapples and then the long silent wait among cactus or jungle or lizard and buzzard desert before being swept up once more ? and that joyous gallop to the now waiting ride! ? by cowboys or drunks or mums or weavers or Indians or families or police chiefs or salesmen who take you out of their way, or to places totally unconceived, to surprising town square towns actually better than the places where you want to go in the first place, where you meet kindly people and maybe fall in love and spend a month or a year, the holy destinous road god in charge now, fearlessness and love rather than the habit and drudge of bus tickets and just sitting there getting to exactly where you want to be, when you want to be there, and where?s the fun in that? So it may be twelve hours by bus ? but it takes me a little over six weeks ? hence the slight delay in submitting this article ? ?cos rather than one straight line there and the same straight line back (who can stand to turn around on themselves?) a little loop down through Belize and Guatemala seems like the order of the day. I take the coastal road down through Tulum ? no point seeing the ruins: I don?t want to get ?ruined out? ? and then have a five day detour with some American woman who picks me up and takes me to her house by the beach, private pool and all, before cutting down through Belize (sheltered by some evangelical Honduran Christians on a hammock in a chicken shed) and across and down through Guatemala, where fate leads me to strangely enticing Quetzaltenango and where I do indeed fall in love, and spend a month, and discover wonderful, up-in-the-mountains hot springs at Las Georginas where private little bungalows are about seven quid a night, beautiful carved-headboard beds and fully-stocked open wood fires ? qu? rom?ntico! ? and midnight in the steaming hot clear water pools alone under full moon with nearest person several miles away. And it?s not guidebooks that have led me there, it?s the road, man, and the thumb. And a little thing called trust? San Cristobal de las Casas ? we?re back in Mexico now, in the famous warzone state of Chiapas ? is crumbling cathedral picturesque, fully-touristed and, hells bells, I?ll send you a postcard if you?re really that interested (the main thing is you can buy a really wonderful big falafel there) and then it?s the mad winding road up through Ocosingo, about five dizzying hours to cover a hundred and twenty miles, and there I do actually take a bus but it?s only because?well, I?ll tell you: I?m standing there thumbing ? this is Sunday morning ? and this guy pulls over and in I jumps, and then he starts saying something about dinero (my Spanish is fairly good but he wasn?t so easy to understand; I think he was drunk) and I try and tell him, no man, I don?t want to pay, I can just wait for another ride ? but then he weirdly turns around and heads back up the road the wrong way and this is all going wrong. And then he pulls into the bus station and starts talking to a driver there and ? really, what the hell does this guy think he?s doing? But all becomes clear: what he?s doing is taking money out of his own wallet and paying my fare to Palenque, for reasons unknown, and you don?t say no to a heartbreaking kindness like that, no matter what your feelings on buses and on missing out on rides clinging to the backs of pickup trucks. What generosity! Where does one stay in Palenque? No idea. Where would you stay? Maybe in town, so you can have modern conveniences and grocery stores and internet cafes and such ? but the vibe is bad, and it?s noisy and smells of gasoline and, anyway, why would you when but six or seven or eight kilometres away there?re the ruins and surrounded-by-jungle hotels but a stone?s throw from the entrance for when ma?ana comes, and that?s where I head in my search for a bed. I go check out the various places and ? holy mother of God! ? there?s suddenly the roar of a lion ? and another, and another! ? and praise be that I know they?re not actually lions but these crazy mad howler monkeys that inhabit the trees all around Palenque and boom out across the steaming thick jungle (it?s August) with their hellacious evil noise: it sounds like a fight-slash-duet between a T. Rex and a death metal singer: it?s as though the final monster from The Thing has just burst free from the flaming gates of Hades and said, I?m fuċkin? hungry man, I want a sandwich ? NOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW! First place I find is some standard double room shenanigans with a restaurant and bar and nothing much going on (it takes me ten minutes to locate the proprietor, sat in his underpants in a hammock in the kitchen) and what with the rooms costing a monstrous 150 pesos per person ? seven pound fifty! ? I give that one a miss. Another place has a sweet little restaurant and a swimming pool ? I take note of that for later ? and is probably the kind of place you guys would want to stay ? but once more too expensive for me, almost English prices. Then I lumber into this bizarre ramshackle field where a dozen or so stoned-out drumming hippies are banging an infernal racket on their djembes ? usual awful noise ? and out of politeness enquire into the falling-down caba?as they have littered around the place ? though luckily the only one that?s empty has lost half its roof (they still offer it to me). I ask them if they?ll be drumming later on ? feigning an interest but secretly wondering how far I?ll have to walk to escape their bullshit ? and the bless?d answer is no. So I excuse myself and slide away as yet another gaunt and tanned skeleton of a too long on the road hippy comes creeping in and I think, man, why don?t you just go home? And, boy oh boy, much as I love this travelling malarkey and sometimes want to do only that I sure don?t want to end up like him. I mean: settle down! Get a job! Find a good woman and make her your wife, get some kids and cut your hair and ? God, I?m getting old and square but ? really, he just don?t look like he?s having a good time. It?s the last place where I find my room: it?s two pound fifty a night and, I?ll tell you what, it ain?t half bad: clean sheets and firm mattresses and more or less mosquito proof ? though there are scorpions on the walls and a two-foot-long iguana does later fall from my ceiling first thing in the morning ? and then it?s off to the restaurant where I treat this Mexican girl to dinner ? she?s poor as a twig ? and take a dip in the pool (no one suspects the white guy), and then we lie on her bed in a power cut and misunderstand each other while the howler monkeys howl and the jungle darkness throbs and it really is rather sweet. ?I?m gonna sneak in in the morning,? I say, ?and watch the sunrise? ? well it is my dream. And splendidly enough, she?s up for that too. Except what happens is this: as we?re tiptoeing through the still-dark jungle ? I?ve heard some rumour about being able to follow a stream all the way in ? we get spotted by a couple of guys with uniforms and machine guns and they come and grab us and lead us back out and then search her bag ? for stolen relics, presumably ? while I mutter things about just looking for a waterfall for a morning bath. They?re not buying it ? well, neither am I ? but they?re satisfied enough and let us go ? how glorious these chilled-out Mexican lawmen and officials! ? and back to bed goes the girl, and back up the road goes me, and weirdly enough the entrance is just open and unmanned anyway and so I wander in and, though temple-top sunrise chance has now been missed, I?m in Palenque man! Palenque is ? well, you can read wikipedia if you want the history, the facts, some pictures, a description ? but Palenque is, to me, a bunch of wicked old buildings, mad stone designs so different from our European norm, everything made out of steps, massive blocks jutting up to stone little sheds sat on top, looking down ? what an effort for such little space! ? and big wide lawns in between everything ? there?s dudes out riding on mowers trimming all the grass ? and, I think, if this was a park it would be the best and most wonderful park in the whole wide world: if I worked in an office just around the corner I would definitely come sit here everyday and eat my lunchtime sandwiches. And what a place to bring the kids to kick a ball! All those lovely lawns in the middle of howling jungle ruins, and peace and ancientness and holy disappearing Mayans being wise and priestly, even now, the energy and such. I sit and meditate ? and I do feel something cool. I spy monkeys in the trees and wonder about them out there. And I do what everyone else does and clamber up and down those ancient steps, and aim for the highest pyramids, and look out over miles and miles of solid sprawling jungle and think ? well, maybe not everyone does this ? I?ve got to get back here when it?s closed, and spend the night, and maybe have something mystical happen. It?s a happy day. Palenque is wicked. But I just need a little more. Another rumour I?ve heard is that there?s a path from the nice restaurant swimming pool hotel ? the Mayabell ? that cuts through the jungle and takes you in the back way: well maybe there is, but I?m not finding it, and so instead it?s mostly hacking through thick scary vines and trees, and occasionally walking into the webs of hand-sized spiders, and spying these big black scuttling scorpions ? it?s the little ones that are dangerous, right? ? and getting cornered and trapped by the sheer density of everything and thinking, hm, maybe this isn?t such a good idea as darkness starts to kick in ? and always the thoughts of those machine guns out there but ? what the hell, I haven?t come all this way not to break into an ancient temple complex ruin and spend the night sat up high on its best and coolest building. It?s an hour in. I dodge a voice-filled hut. And then, miracle upon miracle, I haven?t lost my bearings and I?ve come up right where I want to be, right up the backside of the Templo de Los Cruces. I mean, actually finding my way is such an unlikely thing you just have to believe it?s destiny. Illegal? Yes. But immoral? Wrong? How on Earth could that be? I crouch in the twilight and wait: not too far away guards are shining flashlights up into trees, looking for something, machine guns swinging around their necks. And then the heavens open up and it buckets it down and I think, great, that?ll clear 'em out. I inch my way around to the front of the temple and catch the last of the sunset, and that monstrous jungle rain just buckets and buckets and keeps on bucketing all night long. Lightning flashes and thunder roars, and the lightning is smack bang right there in front of my face blinding me with its glory. Everything lights up. The monkeys are still going at it. I have cover but, man, what else is there to do but strip naked and whoop and dance in this warm and immense tropical storm and take the world?s greatest ever shower? This really is the dream. I spend all night, the rain unabated, and occasionally I sleep and fall into weird spaces where all around me ancient Mayan feathered faces are peering through the dark. In the morning, after sunrise, hawkers lay out their blankets and the first tourists arrive, and I stroll on through. Flights to the Yucatan cost ?300-?500, unless you?re really lucky. I stayed in the unnamed hotel opposite the Mayabell, which is at the end of the road to the ruins, just before the visitors? centre. Rooms cost from ?2.50 per night.

Not that I'm all that into Astrology or nuthin' but...apparently this "your starsign is wrong" thing is a bit of a misinterpretation/scam that goes around every couple of years: while it's true that things might have shifted around a bit 'up there', that's not what our Western astrology is based on.

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Thanks. :-)

Okay.

"Bread for supper!" cried Doris the circus freak's ankle toad witch. "Coming!" a left-handed moccasin replied, switching his far-gone load of multipliers in accordance with the Denver makookoo. Then they sort of lived happily ever after. Meanwhile, a father and his daughter got it on.

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