We Always Stayed Longer at the Ruins

Palenque, Uxmal and Teotihuacán
Story and photography by Bill Bell, with recollections from Dorothy Bell

Dorothy and I could spend an inordinate amount of time exploring Mexico’s archaeological sites. And we did.

We have always loved Mexico’s history, especially the opportunity to explore these extraordinary monuments to its Indigenous past. Palenque, Uxmal and Teotihuacán were three places where we were quite happy to lose track of time.

We aren’t archaeologists. We are two curious travellers who wanted to look, learn and understand something of the lives behind the buildings. A quick walk through, a photograph and back on the road was never going to be enough for us.

There was always something else to see. And, as Dorothy reminded me when she read this, another story to hear—or a family memory to add to the ones we already had.

Palenque: monuments, stories and sounds

At Palenque, the setting is part of the experience. The buildings and the surrounding jungle draw your attention in different directions. You look at what has been uncovered, then wonder what lies beyond it.

It takes some imagination to see a living city where we now see an archaeological site. But that was part of what fascinated us. People worked here, made decisions, practised their beliefs and went about their lives.

Then there were the stories. An ancient king. The Red Queen. The eccentric count associated with the site’s early exploration. The people who studied Palenque, wrote about it and fell in love with it, much as we did.

We could spend hours looking at the buildings and listening to accounts of their history. Then a howler monkey would cry out deep in the jungle and change the whole atmosphere. Suddenly, you were very aware of where you were standing.

Dorothy calls Palenque “our sweet city of monuments, stories and sounds.” That captures something a list of temples and dates never quite could.

With a camera, there was another reason to slow down. A wide photograph gave you the setting. Moving closer brought out the stonework and workmanship. Both deserved time, and I was rarely in a hurry to put the camera away.

Explore our Palenque guide on Drive Mexico.

Uxmal: a place we loved to share

Uxmal rewards a closer look.

The decorated façades can hold your attention long after you have taken in the buildings themselves. Patterns, carved faces and repeated forms make you stop and examine what you might otherwise have walked past.

I find that photography encourages this. You begin by looking for a picture and end up studying something.

Dorothy and I could spend far longer than we intended there. Another detail to examine. Another angle to consider. Another question neither of us could answer.

And then there were the legends. The dwarf magician said to have built the great pyramid in a single night. Stories that sent your imagination off in another direction. At the ball court, we wondered about the people who had played there and those who had watched.

Alongside those old stories, our family collected a few of its own.

On one visit, our son Adam decided he wasn’t climbing any farther. Getting him down became my job, with Adam on my back. It is the sort of thing that stays in the family memory long after you have forgotten what the guidebook said.

We also remember introducing our cousin Maisie to Uxmal and sharing our fascination with the Maya. There is a particular pleasure in taking someone to a place you love and watching them discover it.

For us, Uxmal became a place of family memories as well as ancient history. We loved sharing it.

Explore Uxmal through our photographs and guide on On the Road in Mexico.

Teotihuacán: trying to take it all in

At Teotihuacán, it is the scale that first makes you pause.

The long views along the Avenue of the Dead and the great pyramids give some sense of the ambition behind this city. Even then, a photograph struggles to convey the whole experience.

Our visits brought together so many things: climbing where it was permitted at the time, exploring the museum, and walking down the Avenue of the Dead, imagining ourselves as a king or a soldier moving through a living city.

At each monument there were more questions. How did people live? How was such a place organised? What did it take to build and sustain it?

Those are large questions for a couple of visitors with a camera. We certainly didn’t leave with all the answers. But we enjoyed giving the questions some time.

The museum and the smaller details helped bring our attention back from the enormous structures to the people who had lived among them. A carved face could hold my attention just as surely as a pyramid.

Teotihuacán also reminded us how easily visitors can compress different peoples and centuries into one vague idea of “ancient Mexico.” The more we explored, the more we understood that each place deserved to be considered on its own terms.

Read our guide to exploring Teotihuacán and the Avenue of the Dead.

Time well spent

Palenque, Uxmal and Teotihuacán are very different places. What they shared, for Dorothy and me, was the ability to hold our attention—and to bring us back.

We learned to be careful with the word “ruins.” It describes the remains of buildings, but it can suggest that the people and their cultures simply vanished. Mexico’s Indigenous communities are part of the country’s present as well as its past. Their histories extend far beyond the monuments visitors come to photograph.

Looking through my photographs now, I see reminders of how much there was to learn. Some pictures show the grand views. Others record a small detail that was enough to make me stop.

They also bring back our family visits. The children. A cousin discovering somewhere special. Dorothy and me taking our time, talking about what we had seen and wondering about what we still didn’t understand.

We loved that part of travelling in Mexico. We could follow our curiosity and stay a little longer.

At the archaeological sites, “a little longer” often became quite a while.

Neither of us considered it time wasted.

Planning your own journey? Visit On the Road in Mexico and our Mexico trip-planning pages for help getting started.

Also available in Spanish on On the Road in Mexico. Originally published on Drive Mexico.