Come on Palenque, seriously?

There's this moment of walking into any site of ruins in Mexico that I think of as "the big reveal." It's that moment when you push through the turn style, walk down a pedestrian path, and look out at the scene in front of you for the first time. I always like to pretend I'm discovering that particular set of Mayan ruins, what would that be like? Would I tell anyone else? Maybe not. 

We arrived at the Palenque ruins at 8am on a rainy morning, ready to race the crowds unloading from the giant buses for our 5-10 minutes of uninterrupted silence and wonder. When I first saw these giant stone buildings, I felt immediately overwhelmed with amazement, they are simply the most strikingly beautiful ruins. The light rain added incredible visual drama to this vacant stone city in the jungle. I've seen so much over the last 7 months, but this was something else. These guys knew how to build a ding-dang city!