The Wanderings of busman7

Here is my take on the Maya sites I have seen so far: the ·1 site in my books is Tikal this is an extensive site with numerous temples etc to see & some to climb. We had a very good guide  that explained the site well also taking us on a hike on small trails in the jungle & showing the medicinal  plants especially the one to keep the mosquitoes away. The price was the most reasonable of the sites visited so far  plus there was a souvenir shop on site but NO, NADA  souvenir sellers on the site which was a welcome change from Mexico.

The only down side to Tikal is it is very spread out & the tour is 4 hours of relatively easy jungle trails so if anyone is not fit enough for that there is really no point in going. Note any one who knows me can vouch that if I am capable of doing the hike it is not that bad so most can handle it.

Second on my list would be the Palenque site, although large in area only 5% is open to the public so there isn’t as much to see as the other sites but you get a good idea of the Maya way of life, the terrain is similar to Tikal as they are only 250 miles apart as the crow flies & are believed to have traded. This was the most expensive site to visit but the guide was good & enough of the site is wheel chair accessible to give any one a good tour also the souviner sellers were not the in your face type & a simple no gracais was all that was needed. There was also a trip to a waterfall & a site on the river with an impressive set of rapids & pools for swimming included in the tour. One was Agua Azure & can’t remember the name of the other at the moment but interesting. The town of Palenque is also a nice place to unwind for a couple days & practise your Spanish as virtually no one speaks English.

Last by far on my list is Chichen-Itza which while more was available to see than Palengue & also wheel chair accessable had most ot the trees removed leaving a barren & extremely hot central area unlike what it had been in it’s day. Being on the 7 wonders of the world list & it’s 3 1/2 hr distance from Cancun means that it is over run with tourists & is geared to get them in, get their money & get them out as quickly as possible theme & there seem to be more souvenir sellers than tourists, like why do you need a hundred vendors selling model pyramids? Middle of the road expensive & a guide not needed as the library sells do it your self guides & I had already had a guide at Palenque. In my opinion as long as you plan on taking in one of the other sites & are not filling in your wonders of the world list, give it a pass.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 17:59 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.