Mayan Treasures
Antigua – Chichi – Lake Atitlan – Copan – Livingstone – Tikal – Yaxha
10 days and 9 nights
Day 1: Arrival – Antigua (unguided)
Our team will greet you at La Aurora International Airport and will transfer you to the City of Antigua Guatemala, (1 hr)
Lodging in Antigua
Day 2: Chichicastenango (Thursday and Sunday)
After breakfast we begin our trip towards the heart of the Guatemalan highland, driving through incredibly colorful landscapes: indigenous people wearing their typical suits that shepherd their sheep and dairy cows, hillsides planted with vegetables and flowers, towns that have captured our history in the paintings and crafts made by local artists. (3 hrs) Here you will enjoy the multicolored market and their traditions. The magic that surrounds the ancient, indigenous commercial process in a mixture of flower scents and incense turn the event into a magical moment. In the afternoon we will board our bus and head to Panajachel (1 hr)
Lodging in Panajachel (B)
Day 3: Lake Atitlan
This morning you will take a scenic boat ride across Lake Atitlan (30min) to the village of San Juan La Laguna where you can visit the women’s textile cooperative to see hand weaving and the natural dye process. Visit the studios / homes of the celebrated naïf painters, and the then continue to the village of Santiago where you will have lunch in Hotel Posada Santiago. After lunch you will continue your tour to the village visiting the Maya God Maximon and learn about the textiles, spiritualism and beliefs of the T’zutujil Maya.
After we finish our visit to these magnificent villages you will be transferred to Antigua (2.5 hours)
Lodging in Antigua (B)
Day 4: Antigua Guatemala
After breakfast we will visit the ruins and museums that combined with the old cobbled streets keep the stories and legends of those colonial times. (B)
Lodging in Antigua (B)
Day 5: Copan – Honduras
7:00 a.m. We will depart for Copan through the east part of the country, through a changing landscape with the mild weather of Antigua and Guatemala City and arriving at dry and warm Chiquimula. We will then head towards El Florido where we will cross the border to enter Honduras and head to our hotel to rest awhile (5 hrs). In the afternoon we will make our tour to Copan, accompanied by our expert guides who will lead us through the ceremonial center, the ball court, the hieroglyphic stairway and the acropolis where you will be astonished by the revelation of one of Copan’s best kept secret: the discovery of the Rosalila Temple which was hidden for centuries.
Lodging in Copán (B)
Day 6: Livingstone
After breakfast we travel to Izabal Lake, the biggest lake in Guatemala, which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the Río Dulce River. A journey through colorful villages will lead us to the ancient Maya city of Quiriguá, located in the department of Izabal, Guatemala. This site is characterized by its great sculptures, considered to be masterpieces of the Maya Culture. After our tour to Quiriguá we will go to Río Dulce (5 hrs) and then continue to Livingstone (45 minutes)
Lodging in Livingstone (B)
Day 7: Livingstone / Peten
We will watch the sunrise at the Caribbean while having breakfast. After breakfast we will take a tour on this garifuna village and then we will continue our tour through the Río Dulce River visiting the island of the birds, where we will have the opportunity to take pictures of the birds that live on this island,
Castillo de San Felipe de Lara, fortress built by the Spaniards to protect the merchandise that arrived and left for Spain, and that was coveted by the pirates of the time.
After this we will go back to Río Dulce village and board our bus and head to El Remate area. A few kilometers from Río Dulce we will find the border for the departments of Izabal and Petén, where you will notice a change in the vegetation with a warm-humid climate. (3.5 hrs)
Lodging in Flores area (B)
Day 8: Yaxha National Park
We will wake up in the heart of the Mayan World.
Enjoy a free morning for relaxing and at 14:00 hrs we will board our vehicle and we will travel to the Yaxhá National Park, where the Survivor series “The Mayan Empire” was filmed. Yaxhá archaeological site is located in the banks of the Yaxhá lake; here we will walk through their causeways under an exuberant tropical forest, where howling monkeys flood the atmosphere with their howls to impress the females or to move away an intruding male in their flock. We will climb some temples that are the photographers' accomplices, as they offer wonderful views. We will conclude the day in the high part of the temple 216, the highest structure in the place, where we will enjoy an unforgettable evening listening to the birds sing,
Lodging in Flores area (B)
Day 9: Tikal National Park
After breakfast we will depart for Tikal National park where we will have a guided tour through the most important city in the Mayan world, a mixture of nature and archaeology. Abundant wildlife, the Mayan forest, millennial temples silent witnesses of the birth and splendor as well as of the collapse of one of the most important civilizations in the planet, all this is in our visit to Tikal, The City of the Voices.
After the tour we travel to the Mundo Maya International Airport, to take our flight to Guatemala City. Lodging in Guatemala City (B,L)
Day 10: Back home
Transportation to the airport. Your adventure in the Country of the Eternal Spring finishes. (B)
