Palenque, where the forest holds the roof

Palenque, called Lakamha' by the people who built it, stands on the last terrace of the Chiapas highlands before the land flattens into the Tabasco plain, and the meeting of the two is what you notice first: howler monkeys somewhere in the canopy, a stream running through the site, mist lifting off the trees at eight in the morning. Only a fraction of the city has ever been cleared, and what has been is exceptional. The Temple of the Inscriptions carries one of the longest Maya hieroglyphic texts known, and in 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier followed a filled stairway down inside it to the sealed tomb of K'inich Janaab' Pakal, who ruled for sixty-eight years in the seventh century; his carved sarcophagus lid, showing the king falling into the underworld along the world tree, is one of the great pieces of American sculpture. Beside it, Temple XIII gave up a second burial, a woman whose remains and grave goods were coated in red cinnabar and who is known since as the Red Queen. The Palace occupies the centre, a warren of courtyards, stucco reliefs and a four-storey square tower unlike anything else in the Maya world, with an aqueduct carrying the Otulum stream beneath it. Behind, the Cross Group temples record the succession of Pakal's son Kan B'alam. Leave by the forest path that passes the Queen's Bath and the site museum on the way down to the road. The town of Palenque is eight kilometres east and mostly a place to sleep. On the road towards San Cristóbal, Misol-Ha drops thirty-five metres into a pool you can walk behind, and Agua Azul spreads across a staircase of limestone terraces. It is hot and humid here, so go early.