Mayan Ruins of Toniná

We left San Cristobal on a bone chilling, rainy morning and headed northeast for the Mayan ruin site of Toniná.  Toniná is only 55 miles away from San Cristobal and normally about a 2 hour ride, but on this day it would take us 5 hours of cold, wet shivering.  A very nice way to introduce Wendy to the joys of motorcycle travel, especially as she had no rain or cold weather gear!  Finally we dropped out of the mountains to a little warmer climate in the Ocosingo valley at around 3000 feet elevation and the rain had stopped.

We opted to stay 10 miles out of town next to the park entrance.  At a little roadside chicken and beer stand, Wendy decided that a Michelada was just what she needed after shivering on the back of the bike all day!  A Michelada is basically beer with some spices, chili and lime added for flavor.  Its a woman’s drink.    However when she got her drink, it was a huge cup containing over 3 beers!  Woman’s drink?  Yeah right!  We then dubbed the place “Micheladas as big as your head.”

The road to the park entrance has some great long distance views of the ruins.

Toniná was an aggressive Mayan state, sporadically at war with Palenque for many years.  You can see that it sits on a easily defensible position.  Toniná was founded in the early classic Mayan period, but really came into power in the late classic period from about 600 to 900 AD.  Much more detailed information about Toniná can be found here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonin%C3%A1

There were some rustic cabins that we stayed at right outside the park entrance.  The boards making up the outer walls had half inch gaps in them.  The beds were thin foam pads over wooden slats.  In addition, the place was slam full of some very interesting looking BIG spiders, and much to Wendy’s chagrin there was neither hot water, nor a toilet seat.  Nevertheless, she loved the place.  She is used to snakes, spiders and scorpions in her open air place in Costa Rica, so the spiders didn’t really phase her, just the lack of a toilet seat.  It was a very peaceful place to stay after being in Tuxtla and San Cristobal for a while.  Just the type of place I needed after being suffocated in cities for the last couple of weeks.  I thought it was perfect.

The Toniná ruins have very few visitors compared to a place like Palenque.  Although not nearly as impressive as Palenque, the fact that there are minimal visitors is what makes Toniná special in my opinion.

You can get up when the park opens, walk in, and have the place to yourself for at least a couple of hours.  You can climb around the temples, walk in the dark labyrinths of the main structure (bring some good lights), sit on the highest stone and survey the surroundings, imagining what it would have been like to live in this city over a thousand  years ago.  With the lack of visitors early in the morning, you can sit alone, in silence, and actually feel the presence of the ghosts of the old civilization.  Very, very cool if you ask me.  This is exactly what I like about visiting old ruins.

The main ball court sits just below and in the shadows of the great temples.  The losing team would wind up beheaded.  Hummm.  I dont think I want to play………

Next as you head to the main structure is the Temple of the Underworld, an important aspect of the Mayan after life.

I’ll shut up now and leave you with the pictures of this fantastic site.  If you go to Chiapas you will want to go to Palenque, but do yourself a favor and make plans to visit Toniná.  Its a great little place to stay and they are wonderful ruins to explore without the crowds, rules and regulations of Palenque.  Highly recommended.

The forest reclaims things quickly.  After only 100 years, the old stones would be completely covered with dirt and vegetation, including trees.  This side is only partially excavated and a good example of what the archeologists and anthropologists had to deal with.

The skies were so nice and dark here that I couldnt resist getting a couple hours of star trails from the cabin.  Its cool to see how low on the horizon the north star is now.  We are getting close to the southern hemisphere and constellations are appearing on the southern horizon that I am not familiar with.  Very cool!!!!!

Hasta luego.  Saludos, Vicente