Mexico
Yucatán and Chiapas
13 days
Mexico strung together from west to east works very well: you start at altitude, drop into the Chiapas jungle, cross the Gulf and finish in the Caribbean. The Maya built for fifteen hundred years and the cities do not resemble one another, so seeing them in chronological order makes sense.
Day by day
Day 01 · Spain / Mexico City
Direct flight. Transfer to Condesa or Roma.
Day 02 · Mexico City
The historic centre, the Templo Mayor and the National Museum of Anthropology, one of the best in the world and worth half a day at minimum.
Day 03 · Teotihuacán
An early start to climb before the heat. The city was the largest in the Americas with a hundred and twenty-five thousand people, and was already abandoned when the Aztecs found it.
Day 04 · San Cristóbal de las Casas
Flight to Tuxtla and up to two thousand two hundred metres. A colonial town with a majority indigenous population and a mountain climate.
Day 05 · Chamula and Zinacantán
Two Tzotzil villages. The church at Chamula has no pews — it has pine needles on the floor, candles, and a form of worship that mixes Catholicism with what came before.
Day 06 · Sumidero Canyon / Palenque
Sailing between thousand-metre walls and down into the jungle. Arrival in the afternoon.
Day 07 · Palenque
You go in as it opens, with mist between the temples and howler monkeys in the background. Pakal’s tomb lies under the Temple of the Inscriptions and was found in 1952.
Day 08 · Campeche
North to the Gulf. A city walled against pirates, houses painted in colours and very few visitors.
Day 09 · Uxmal
Puuc style, with facades of stone mosaic and hardly anyone compared with Chichén. A night in a henequen hacienda.
Day 10 · Chichén Itzá / Valladolid
In at first light, before the buses from Cancún. A cenote in the afternoon and a night in Valladolid.
Day 11 · Tulum
Down to the coast. The site stands on a cliff above the sea and is the only Maya city built that way.
Day 12 · Riviera Maya
A free day, cenotes or Sian Ka’an.
Day 13 · Cancún / Spain
Flight home.
Usually includes
- International flights and the internal flight
- A car with driver and archaeologist guides
- Hotels with character, including a night in a henequen hacienda
- Breakfasts and selected meals
- Entrance to every site and reserve on the route
- A travel document with every detail and a direct phone number
This trip, your way
Length
13 days
Route
Mexico City · San Cristóbal · Palenque · Campeche · Uxmal · Chichén Itzá · Tulum
Format
Private and tailor-made, on your dates
Let us make this trip yours.
Change the dates, add days where you want them, or simply tell us how you like to travel. We reply within 24 hours.
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