Ruta Maya – Part 13
This is Part 13 of a series of articles on the Aztec and Mayan pyramids and ruins in Central America. Updated Sep 2022.
Millions of tourists go to Mexico yearly, but few venture into the remote areas of Chiapas state near the border with Guatemala. We went there to see the Mayan ruins of Bonampak and Yaxchilan.
First, you will need to travel to a place called La Canada in Chiapas. You can get there by bus. While in La Canada, take a day to tour the magnificent Mayan ruins of Palenque.
See Ruta Maya part 12 for information on Palenque
Frontera Corozal
From Palenque, travel to the little town of Frontera Corozal. Unfortunately, there is no bus service, but you can get there in something called a “combi” which is a small van. Just ask your hotel where to find one.
Frontera Corozal is an isolated town, 22 km off the highway, with a population of about 5,000. Besides a small local museum, there is not much in the town of interest. There are no banks and no government offices. The town was connected to the main highway with paved roads only in the 1990s.
The photo shows a combi with our suitcases on the roof.
Escudo Jaguar
The only good thing about Frontera Corozal is that it has a nice hotel outside of town on the banks of the Usumacinta River. There is a nice restaurant and boats available for trips down the river. This is the only accommodation within reach of the Mayan ruins of Bonampak and Yaxchilan (Yaxchilan will be the next stop on the Ruta Maya, which I will post soon after this one.)
Escudo Jaguar is also an excellent place for birding. I saw the beautiful Painted Bunting here, the Gray Catbird, and other birds.
Bonampak Paintings
The Bonampak ruins are very small. Just one central plaza and one large building. There is no grand pyramid and no structures worth going to see. The attraction here is the magnificent paintings and carvings that have survived the ages in fair condition.
Click the first photo to enlarge, then scroll through the others.
stela
There is a huge stela carved with the image of King Chaan Muan II. Most stelae (one stela, two stelae) that I have seen have had the images eroded over the centuries, most of them to the point that you can see nothing at all. This one, besides being gigantic, the picture is clearly visible. It must have fallen over at one time and broke into several pieces. It has been restored, and is in not-too-bad condition, all things considered. There are a few large cracks and a couple of small holes.
Ripped off
Chiapas is a remote part of Mexico where federal government laws are not always enforced. For example, you might pass through a little village that has set up a roadblock and charges a toll to pass. Although this is illegal, if you refuse to pay, you won’t be able to continue your trip.
The taxi driver gave us a good price of 300 pesos to drive to the ruins from Escudo Jaguar, wait for us, and bring us back. But he failed to inform us that he was not allowed to go all the way to the ruins. When we got to within ten kilometres of the site, he pulled over, and we were informed that we would have to take a different taxi the remainder of the way. The reason is that this is the territory of the Lacandona indigenous people, and you can only get to the ruins with one of their taxis at a cost of 70 pesos per person, not per taxi. Another rip-off, but after hiring a taxi and driving 30 minutes to get here, it was a bit late to quit.
Tourism Chiapas
It is not just taxis that are not allowed here. If you come in your own car or a tour bus, you still have to take a taxi for the last ten kilometres. I imagine bus tour operators would have a lot of angry customers when they find out that they have to get off their nice bus and pay for a taxi for the final stretch of road. That is probably why we saw no one here. All the Mayan sites we have visited have at least a few cars in the parking lot and usually one or two tour buses. The better sites have much more. After two hours at Bonampak, we had not seen another tourist with or without their own vehicle.
This kind of backwards-thinking policy keeps people away. They do not understand the concept of promoting tourism for the future and instead try to rip people off and squeeze every peso they can out of the tourists that are here today.
Imagine a town in Canada or U.S.A. where you had to pay to get in. Then you would be forced to take a taxi to the local tourist destination and pay per person, not per taxi, even if you have a perfectly good car of your own. The parking lot would be empty, just like the one at Bonampak. People would spend their money elsewhere.
Summary
Despite the rip-offs, I recommend going to Bonampak. It is your chance to see a remote part of Mexico that most tourists don’t see. If you are interested in the Mayan culture, then it is worth going to see the paintings and the giant stelae. The hotel and restaurant at Escudo Jaguar are perfect. There is also the nearby ruins of Yaxchilan, which I will describe in my next post.
Click here for a list of all the sites on the Ruta Maya