Mayan sites in the Yucatán Peninsula
Mayan sites in the Yucatán Peninsula
Mayan ruins can be found all over the Yucatán Peninsula. The area stretches over the East of Mexico, Northern Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and the North-West of Honduras.

The map on the left displays only a few sites. Mayan ruins can be found all over the place in this region, even on islands such as Cozumel in the Caribbean and Topoxte island in a Guatemalan lake.

Notable is that the biggest (though unexcavated) site of El Mirador is missing here too.
The ancient Mayans started building in the south and headed Northwards in later times.

This post will take you on a tour of great Mayan sites I have visited. From these most are in more isolated places where very few tourists venture due to the fact that it takes some time to get there. The peace and tranquility felt when being (almost) alone with the ruins and the surrounding nature is something very special and will stay with me forever. This was one of the reasons for me to visit these places. the Duende Mayan Jungle Tours is the tour company that had arranged these trips for me and made these amazing experiences a reality. 

Now, lets take you on a quick tour!
 
 

When thinking of vacations, traditionally we think of fancy hotels, sandy beaches and filling up on too many alcoholic drinks. Or maybe we think of hi-rise buildings, expensive dining, Broadway Theater, and filling up on too many alcoholic drinks. Whatever the picture is, from a tropical Caribbean island getaway, to a cozy Bed + Breakfast near a secluded ski resort, in all likelihood, your vision does not include deep jungle biking through the forests of Guatemala, or underground cave tubing in Belize.


New Concepts

Adventure travel vacations and overseas adventure tours are fairly new concepts to many people. The idea of a “hiking vacation”, for instance, one where you sleep in eco-lodges, or tents under the stars, where you travel on horseback, or on foot, and where you carry your daily food on your back, these are not the normal activities that come to mind when one thinks of going on vacation. More and more people, however, are slowly changing the notion of what a vacation can and cannot entail.

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Imagine doing this: Don snorkel gear and swim down to discover mysterious sculptures sunk into the ocean floor. Among colorful tropical fish, gaze at Jason de Caires Taylor's spooky grouping of concrete figures. See a circle of stone children, for instance, hidden beneath the waves.


This dream is about to become a reality. In November, Mexico debuts off the shores of Cancun the first stage of largest underwater museum in the world.


 
 
There’s nothing more fun than sitting in a laundry room in Eastern Europe, rain pouring down, talking to a whole bus load of young, first time gap-year explorers who are three months into the adventure of a lifetime.

Full of dreams and anecdotes, dog-eared guide-book-cum-Bible in hand, they need little encouragement to provide enough entertainment to get tomorrow’s clothes dry. One picks a guitar while his friend talks. Another keeps storming in and out, frustrated that the tiny condensation driers aren’t working any faster and lamenting the very things I love about the third world groove.

I listen to the chatter and try to avoid being asked too many questions about my on again, off again life on the road over the past twenty-something years. It’s too hard to explain. I’ve learned a lot in these laundry rooms, and in crawling slowly across continents in vans, planes, trains and boots; on boats, bicycles, camels, and mules; something my young friends haven’t yet, but if they walk far enough they will:
 
 

Mayan Jungle Travel Adventures come in all shapes and sizes. They come in a plethora of lengths and widths; in an assortment of themes and categories. But most of all they are in some way, shape, or form educational, fun, and enlightening. Mayan Jungle Travel Adventures are a one-in-a-lifetime experience.

 

Though no one really knows when commercial Mayan Jungle travel adventures began, there are theories in local communities that traditional versions began when the first civilizations of Mayans settled in the jungles. Groups of young Mayans for various cultural and/or social reasons would explore the Mayan jungles in search of food, shelter, or fun. Because of the dynamic environment found in the jungle region of the Mayan World, present day Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, finding something entertaining was and is never an issue. This holds incredibly true as tour operators in the region have taken advantage of the Mayan jungles resources and revamped the eco tourism experience for active travelers.

 

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Mountain biking in the forest
 
 

In 1996 two friends and I undertook our first backpacking experience. We traveled from Costa Rica to Guatemala in six months. We originally planned to travel for a year, but half way decided to do something more useful with our presence in Central America and applied for volunteer jobs in Honduras and Guatemala.

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A house nearby a river in Guatemala
 
 

The Mundo Maya region

A favorite among adventure travel and jungle tours, the "Mundo Maya", or Mayan World, is an area of roughly 300,000 square kilometers (116,000 square miles) in Central America, covering the whole of Belize and Guatemala and parts of Honduras, El Salvador and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo.

The ancient Mayans left evidence of their existence in the form of limestone constructions throughout this vast tropical region.

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Ancient Mayan Ruins in Tikal
 
 

Very rarely will you come across a learned man or woman in the U.S. ignorant of anything to do with Mayan ruins. Perhaps "Chichen Itza", "Tikal" or "Palenque" will come to mind, recalling "something" about one of the aforementioned Mayan Ruins. These names are the milestones of the Maya Civilization in terms of size and sophistication. Towering stacks of half-ton stone comprise these architecturally advanced creations. Even without knowledge of the most popular names, the average person can still recall something about the ancient civilization; one that gave us the calendar, advanced mathematics, astronomy, hydraulics, and architecture beyond belief. The average person will know something about Mayan ruins.

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The Mayan ruins of Tikal, Guatemala attract thousants of visiters a year
 
 

Cycling to Mayan ruins and temples in the Guatemalan rainforest

Perhaps one of the most exciting and dynamic experiences in the realm of mountain biking, Mayan jungle bike tours in Guatemala stand above all. Beyond the off road experience through dense forest flora, mud pits, hills and thick tropical tree roots, deep forest mountain biking gives one a very rewarding goal at the finish line: Mayan pyramids and ruins. There are some major differences between deep jungle cycling, and the traditional form explored by traditional tour operators. The main differences have to do with the speed of the tour, the process revolving around the tour, and the environmental elements involved in the tour.

 

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Cycling through the forest
 
 

What is Jungle travel?

Jungle travel is a rising subcategory of adventure travel defined by active multifaceted physical means of travel in the jungle regions of the earth. According to the Glossary of Tourism Terms, jungle tours have become a major component of green tourism in tropical destinations and are a relatively recent phenomenon of Western international tourism. With interest in ecotourism on the rise, jungle travel is gaining more and more attention from travelers all over the world.

 

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Jungle Travel