My fascination with the Mayans started on a 10 day road trip through the north
central and north west areas of the Yucatan Peninsula in May 2008. Five
subsequent road trips took me though the rest of the Mayan lands in the Yucatan,
Tabasco and Chiapas, then Guatemala, Copan in Honduras and Belize. I ended up
visiting over 50 sites.
All but part of one of the trips were solo, driving rented
cars over fairly good two lane paved
roads (some Belize and Guatemala roads were not so good), maps in hand (make
sure to have the most recent available) and staying at quaint little hotels in
quaint little towns along the way. Studying
Lonely Planet guide books is how you do all this and have a great time and get
home alive.
Without metal tools, draft animals and the wheel
(they did roll logs), the Mayans built all of what you will see here over about
a thousand years span in three phases and areas moving north out of the mountains of
Guatemala. It took a huge population to build all this and eventually population size out grew the available water supply in the aquifers (cenotes) and then there were those dry (drought) years. Note that in the northern
half of the Yucatan there are no rivers and all the big cities are inland.
It is very hot in the lands of the Mayan.
