Today was supposed to be my trip to Palenque with the local I met from Showaround but unfortunately she could not setup transport for us. So alternatively I set out on a mission to find a reasonable priced tour agency to do the job of getting to Palenque at 8am this morning.

At first, I had no luck in terms of doing a tour for this morning until I met a tour operator walking the street via one I just spoken to. The man told me he could do it right then but at a higher price than I was willing to pay. But after telling him I would go through another tour agency for the next day being Thursday he suddenly knew of a guy. He the called Alex Rocha, who is a highly recommended tour guide and operator in the Facebook group Black Travel Movement. Once I spoke to him and got pricing I accepted and was led by the guy in the street named Juan to one of Alex Rocha’s assistants who took me to his tour bus.

After loading up the bus, everyone made introductions and I found that most people in my group are from the USA. Alex Rocha introduced himself and the importance of black history being told and taught by a black man being his motivations for why he started his tour agency. Even his name Rocha is a popular Surname/Last Name in the Palenque town areas he is from.

The tour itself was professional and we even got to interact with several locals during our tour of Palenque. Upon leaving the town we stopped by a restaurant to break bread with our tour group members before returning to Cartagena.