I think I have begun to see just how hard this whole “blogging” thing is going to be.
It’s been quite awhile since my last chance to see the internet – in fact, I can hardly put together the things that have happened/taken place these past couple of days.
The last you heard from me, we were in
Matamoros
and were headed to
Palenque
, in southern
Mexico
.
I will do my best to catch you up.
As the first “official” leg of our race, we embarked on a 26 hour bus ride to
Villahermosa
, MX on Thursday night (Jan. 4).
From there we had a 6 hour layover (originally only supposed to be 4 hours) before we headed out at
5 AM
on our last 2 hour bus ride here to
Palenque
.
In order to complete this leg of the race, we had to make our way to the Ancient Mayan ruins located about 15 minutes outside of
Palenque
, climb the highest temple there, and take picture of our team overlooking the rest of the ruins – first team to take the picture would win.
It just so happens, however, that in
Villahermosa
, each of the teams we were racing against bought tickets for the SAME bus to
Palenque
.
You guessed it – it all ended with a footrace to the finish line.
Upon arriving at the
Palenque
bus station Saturday morning, and with little to no sleep, our team jumped into taxis and headed straight for the site.
Lucky for us, the park did not open until
8 AM
and we were able to have another team (who we weren’t racing against) buy tickets for us.
Because of this, we were able to be at the gates when the park opened and we ended up being the first team to hit the steps of the temple.
Wahoo!
Needless to say, it was a cool first leg of the journey.
I’ve included several pictures of the ruins.
While I knew the entire time that the park was covered in idol worship, (for many people in this area still practice the religion) I was still amazed by the beauty of the place.
Almost 1500 years ago, these people were basically secluded in the mountains of this area, had practically little to no contact with the “outside” world or other people groups.
And yet … they still understood that there was something, or
someone that needed to be worshipped.
While they practiced
some crazy stuff, and even sacrificed themselves to their gods … they still saw the bottom line that there was something
bigger than themselves out there.
Is it something that is engrained in us as human beings?
Are we truly
created and
formed to worship?
No matter what age or culture or belief system?
Some interesting things to think about.
