Hello all -

We're headed to Mexico over thanksgiving and I've got 2 questions.

First - we're going to be visiting Palenque via the Tren Maya, and were wondering about renting a car to see stuff ourselves vs a tour. Most of the safety issues seem to be further south near Ocosingo between there and San Cristobal. Is the area just south of Palenque safe to drive? We'd only be out during the daytime and would want to just see some of the waterfalls as well as the archaeological site. We did we some tours but renting a car is much less expensive, and we'd be on our own timeline. The furthest south we would be might be the Cascadas Roberto Barrios or Agua Azul, though I think we're looking at Misol Ha mostly.

Secondly - we're going to be trying out Mexicana as they offer a flight directly out of PQM Palenque - and it goes through the new NLU/AIFA airport. Looking online, it seems to run on time historically. Would I be insane to try and make a 2 hour connection to an Aeromexico flight to Oaxaca? Mexicana would land at 3:50pm and my outgoing flight would be 6pm. I would have a checked bag so I would have to exit, check the bag, and go through security, but I assume this airport is pretty quick since its new?

Thanks in advance.