FROM PALANQUE WE STARTED NORTH. Up until now we’d been traveling south and west, away from our starting point in Cancun. Now that we’d made a U-turn it started to feel like our trip was winding down. I didn’t like that idea, and maybe that’s part of the reason I didn’t like Campeche. It was…
La Ruta Maya – Palenque
IT WAS AN EIGHT-HOUR TRIP BY CHICKEN BUS across the rough roads of the Peten to get to our next destination: Palenque, Mexico. It made for a long day, but a relatively uneventful one save for two minor episodes: minor because neither of them realized their potential to become full-blown disasters. The first of these episodes occurred at…
La Ruta Maya – Tikal
BELIZE IS NOT A RICH COUNTRY, but Guatemala made it seem that way. Immediately upon crossing the border my girlfriend and I were dogged by insistent money changers, taxi drivers, and peddlers of textiles, food, and drink. Just beyond this menagerie was a bridge leading over the Mopan River, which was lovely in spite of…
La Ruta Maya – Xunantunich
MY GIRLFRIEND AND I decided to visit one more Maya site before leaving Belize and crossing over into Guatemala. She didn’t commit to the excursion at first, pleading an understandably sore ass from the Caracol adventure, but soon changed her mind when she saw what a beautiful day it was. Besides, it was only twenty minutes by…
La Ruta Maya – Caracol
I WOKE WITH STOMACH PAINS and wondered if this was going to be a bad day for a bus trip. My girlfriend and I were headed for the Belizean town of San Ignacio, near the border with Guatemala. A five-hour ride. Fortunately the cramps eased as we drove inland past the Maya Mountains which rose…
James Perry 