Margarita & Ed Cabañas, El Panchan, Palenque area, Mexico

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Overall Comments:

What can we say about a rustic place in the "jungle" of Palanque? Well, it's rustic and the "jungle" is as wild as my backyard in Toronto, Canada. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration as we did see monkeys playing in the trees when I was puking my guts out from the food poisoning I was rewarded with by eating at Mr. Taco the night before. Hey, I wouldn't have seen the monkeys if it wasn't for the kind English-speaking owner, Margarita, who wouldn't let my wife extend the room because she knew I was sick. Thanks! Okay, maybe the sarcasm isn't required, but this place was a little overpriced at 280 pesos/night since in our opinion wasn't much better than cheaper options in El Panchan area of Palanque. Our room at the Jungle Palace was cheaper and almost as good.  Nevertheless, we really can't disagree with the comments in the 2011 Mexico Lonely Planet Travel Guide about this place. It really was "...bright, clean and cheerful..." and it did have good mosquito netting. However, as "full of local information" as Margarita was, we really wouldn't refer to this place as "homey", unless of course you come from a home where you get kicked out of when you feel ill. Did we mention that we wanted to rent the room for an additional day and not just extend it within the price we already paid? When we found out we couldn't extend our stay, we needed to store our bag somewhere for the day as we weren't leaving until that evening with a night bus to Tulum. Although I was weak, sick and had a high fever, I managed to carry my overweight backpack the 50-100 meters from our room to the main office so that she could store the bags for the day. She didn't offer to help. Furthermore, when she finally saw me, (as my wife went to see her about the request to extend the rent of the room because I was sick), and saw how pale I was, she decided to talk about how "dirty" the food in town can be. Her vivid description of the lack of hygiene of the food made me feel ill so I immediately ran outside to vomit for the first time that day. Although I wasn't vomiting before this, she still refused to rent us a room. Although I was visibly barely alive and in distress, she wasn't compassionate enough to offer any help in this situation.

Location:

Margarita & Ed Cabañas are located in the isolated area of El Panchan, just outside of the Palenque park entrance. The cost for a taxi from Palanque town to El Panchan is 40 pesos, if you are good at negotiating. Otherwise, a collectivo to/from Palenque costs about 10 pesos per person, but  they stop driving to this area after about 6PM. Getting out of this area after about 5:30-6PM can be problematic, unless you arrive with your own car since taxis or collectivos typically aren't around.

This area is a bit isolated but despite it's isolation from town, it didn't really feel like being in the "jungle", especially since the small area of El Panchan has so many people in that area and the places play loud music. That was a bit disappointing. Maybe if you've never been to the Brazilian, Guatemalan, Thai, Costa Rican or any other  rainforest, this might feel like a jungle, but because we have stayed in real rainforests/jungles this certainly didn't measure up.

Specifically, our room was just off the "main" street of El Panchan so it didn't have that jungle feel. Furthermore, the Palenque ruins are still 2km from this area which is a long walk in the heat. Palanque town isn't within walking distance but most visitors will want to visit it at some point during their stay in this area. Other than Don Muchos restaurant, there really isn't much else in El Panchan, so we'd probably stay at a place closer to the ruins or in town if we were to visit this area again.

Room Comfort:

Our room was spacious and had a spacious bathroom. Although a fresh coat of paint would do wonders for the solid walled basic rooms, they were surprisingly pretty well maintained. We didn't have A/C in our room so the fan provided just managed to blow the hot, humid air around the room. There was a good mosquito net on the windows to keep insects out of the room. Finally, there was ample hot water in the shower.

Cleanliness:

The room was clean, except for some ants and other wild "animals" we killed in the room.

Service:

Other than the unwillingness of the owner to rent us a room because I was sick, the service was good. Unfortunately, we can't get over how uncompassionate the owner was in this unfortunate circumstance to really be happy with the service we received.

There is also free drinking water available from the reception area, but you are technically limited to one 2L jug per day. With eyes on you every time you filled your jug, it felt like we were breaking the law every time we filled our water jug.

Food:

There are no meal options available at this place, but Don Muchos restaurant is nearby.

Other Notes:

Stay away from the chicken tacos at Mr. Taco in town. The reason we ate there was because we wanted something quick to eat so that we could attempt to catch a collectivo back to El Panchan and it backfired. Not only did we not get a collectivo, I also got food poisoning.  

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