Mysteries of the Maya & Aztecs

Fly overnight from London to Mexico City.

On arrival, transfer to the 3-star Hotel Royal Reforma for overnight. The high altitude, high-octane, huge capital is a cosmopolitan cornucopia of galleries, music, museums, and murals. An afternoon tour includes the Coyoacán quarter, a former village, now encircled by the city and forming its artistic, cultural, and historic colonial heart; the Frida Kahlo Museum, celebrating the artist’s life in her Casa Azul home; and Xochimilco Floating Gardens, where fruits and flowers thrive on rafts crafted from reeds and branches. 
(B)

Visit Mexico City’s Museum of Anthropology, with an enviable collection of ancient Mexican art; continue to the ancient city of Teotihuacán, where the Sun Pyramid is among the largest in the Western hemisphere; and drive to Puebla. Among the most important of Mexico’s Spanish colonial cities, with a full moniker to match, Heróica Puebla de Zaragoza is a big city with a beautiful historic core and a backdrop of volcanic peaks. Overnight at the 3-star Colonial Hotel. 
(B)

Enjoy a tour of Puebla, with its dozens of churches, and hundreds of period houses adorned with azulejo tiles. Leave the city travel to Oaxaca (4 hrs) and visit the botanical cactus gardens en route. Two nights at the 3-star Oaxaca Real Hotel. 
(B)

Visit the pre-Columbian remains of Monte Alban, said to be the first Mexican culture to produce written language and a calendar; and explore Oaxaca, a bewitching mix of cobbled streets, colonial houses, Indian markets and exquisite churches, Oaxaca has an easy tempo, a penchant for fiestas and a reputation for hospitality. Tree-shaded squares are filled with people-watching pavement cafés, restaurants specialise in the renowned regional cuisine, local crafts include bright wool rugs and hand-woven textiles, myriad museums complement pre-Columbian ruins, the city exudes an air of arty, authentic Mexican culture.
(B)

Tour to the archaeological site of Mitla, a sacred site of ornately mosaiced Zapotec tombs; and visit a Mezcal distillery, an agave-based spirit that tastes like a smoky tequila. Continue to Tehuantepec, an important Zapotec town until the 16th century arrival of the conquistadors, catching the trade winds on its eponymous isthmus. Overnight at the 3-star Hotel Calli. 
(B)

Drive (5 hrs) to the Sumidero Canyon for a boat trip through the gigantic gorge; and complete today’s journey in the gorgeous town of San Cristóbal de las Casas, filling a Central Highlands valley with cobbled roads, red-tiled roofs, and wrought iron balconies. Two nights at the 3-star Casa Vieja Hotel.
(B)

Enjoy a tour of the intriguing town of San Cristóbal de las Casas, where indigenous culture complements 16th/17th-century colonial architecture; and visit the local Maya communities.
(B)

Travel to the Guatemalan border and onward to Panajachel (8 hrs). With a tropical climate and a setting on the shore of Lake Atitlán, Panajachel is the largest, and by far the liveliest, settlement in this relatively remote highland region. Two nights at the 3-star Jardines del Lago Hotel or similar.
(B)

Enjoy an excursion on Lake Atitlán, cruising to visit a village of the living Maya, to experience traditional Mayan culture and way of life.
(B)

Visit Chichicastenango, with its colourful market and Church of Santo Tomás, and, on its outskirts, experience a Jules Verne Unique Experience, a traditional Mayan ceremony; before driving through the highlands to Antigua. At the foot of an unholy trinity of volcanos, the city has survived destruction and all but abandonment, but its cobbled streets are as vibrant and animated now as in its heyday. Two nights at the 3-star Hotel Las Farolas in Antigua.
(B)

The colonial capital of Guatemala from 1543 until the devastation of an earthquake in 1773, Antigua was always a beautiful city and, despite all that nature could throw at it, it still is. Enjoy a tour of its landmarks today.
(B)

Leave for a foray into Honduras, and travel (5½ hrs) to visit the remarkable remains of ancient Copán, dubbed ‘the Paris of the Mayan world’, with imposing public squares and the fantastic Plaza of the Hieroglyphic Staircase; abandoned in the 9th century AD, and discovered in 1570. Overnight at the 4-star Hotel Ciudad Blanca.
(B)

Return to Guatemala and travel (3 hrs) through the Motagua Valley to visit the UNESCO listed site of Quiriguá, where 8th-century Mayan monuments include a series of carved stelae and sculpted calendars. Continue to Puerto Barrios, backing Amatique Bay, off the Gulf of Honduras, for overnight at the 3-star Amatique Bay Resort Hotel.
(B)

A boat trip from Puerto Barrios takes you through the jungle, filled with exotic flora and fauna, passing between the huge cliffs of the Rio Dulce Canyon to Livingston, one of the most isolated towns, accessible only by boat, and imbued with a unique culture; continue to see the San Felipe fort, strategically set at the narrowest point of the river; and return to dry land at Rio Dulce town to go by road (3½ hrs) to the region of Lake Petén Itza. Two nights at either the Camino Real Tikal or Casona del Lago.
(B)

Explore Tikal National Park, hidden deep in the rainforest. The remains of a huge Mayan city called Yax Mutal, it is believed to have had a population of almost 100,000 in its heyday, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site; and visit the adjacent Sylvanus G Morley Museum, with a superb collection of ceramic and jade exhibits.
(B)

Travel by road (4 hrs) to Bethel, and cross the Guatemala border by boat on the Usumacinta River, arriving in Mexico at Corozal. Another short boat journey brings you to the 7th-century riverbank site of Yaxchilán, once hugely influential, a ‘lost city’ for several centuries, and inhabited now by toucans and howler monkeys. Transfer to Palenque for overnight at the 3-star Hotel Nututun.
(B, L)

Visit the ancient site of Palenque. Hidden for a thousand years in forests of mahogany and cedar, the ruins were freed from their choking jungle to reveal a mesmerising place of temples, tombs, a towered palace, sculptures, and mystical masks. Travel (6 hrs) to the harbour city of Campeche, and enjoy a tour of the Spanish-colonial enclave, complete with cobbled streets, pastel-painted mansions, restored baroque façades, and 16th century rampart walls around its atmospheric old town. Overnight at the 3-star Plaza Colonial.
(B)

Travel to Uxmal and visit the intriguing 6th to 10th-century archaeological site, where sizeable temple pyramids complement the Houses of the Birds, the Turtles and the Doves. After lunch at a typical Maya home, visit Mérida, the Yucatan state capital, for a walking tour of the ‘White City’, its limestone colonial churches built with the remnants of Mayan temples; and continue to Chichén Itzá, for overnight at the 3-star Villas Arqueológicas.
(B, L)

Visit the UNESCO World Heritage site of Chichén Itzá. Set above a ‘cenote’ subterranean river, the jewel in a 6sq km crown of astonishing structures and sculptures is the Kukulkan pyramid (aka El Castillo), now believed to cover two earlier temples, one inside the other in Russian-doll style. Discover the 13th-century Mayan site of Tulum, its clifftop Castillo overlooking the sea; and travel to Cancún, ‘the glistening city’ sprawling round the Caribbean coral reef. Overnight at the 3-star Hotel Beach Scape, Cancún.
(B)

Transfer to the airport for the return overnight flight, via Mexico City.
(B)

Arrive London.