Maya Bell or Jurasic Park?

Maya bell campground next to the Palenque ruins is rather famous in its own right. There are aging Hippies and a gathering of wanderers from all over the world to see Palenque... tent campers under palapa roofs and 36 ft diesel pushers sharing the same campground. Music plays every night at a small open air cafe with tropical plants & trees growing thru the roof. However, the thing that is most memorable is the sound from the jungle surrounding the park. It is the sound of Howler monkeys. I had no idea how otherworldly this sound would be. It was suggested that the soundtrack to Jurasic Park could have been a recording of these fellow primates. I wish I had a photo but I wasn't going out in the jungle to get it ...
Palenque was cloudy and raining but awesome just the same. The jungle setting was beautiful.

More Beach photos

A Postcard Beach

I took an early morning walk east along the beach to the Isla Aguada Malecon. It is lined with small fishing boats, processing facilities (huts), two small ice plants, and a few mechanic shops. This is not a pristine ‘postcard’ beach. In the morning the boats with their small crews bring in the catch. I can not give you a informed accounting of the fish taken... my knowledge of the sea and its bounty are limited. I did recognize a few varieties of shark, and there were Red Snapper & Pompano on occasion. A few men were taking small pieces of palm leaf to tie up Blue Crabs. They had a small mountain of them. This was one ‘detail’ job I saw. Another was the painstaking bringing in of their nets.
I was witness to a complete system. Men harvesting from the sea, others to weigh and pay, to produce ice, to haul fish to market, and leaving any scraps remaining to the birds overhead and the prowling dogs of the malecon. There is little time or need in a fishermans life here in Isla Aguada for a wandering gringo. It is a home to working men and women on the edge, the edge of a sea & the edge of what the sea may offer. What is a postcard beach? Here in Isla Aguata It is the place where land meets sea and man engages a livlihood... It is rewarding to find an image you are not looking for.