Day 1: Cancun: Collect your car at the airport. Overnight at the hotel Beachscape Villas at Kin Ha hotels own web site
Day 2: As soon as you escape the horrors of the Riviera Maya, where no theme is too tacky, you enter one of the most laid-back regions in the world. Besides the Mayan ruins dotted all over the peninsula, there is almost an overabundance of beauty: rolling miles of emerald jungle, punctuated by deep cenotes (sinkholes linked to subterranean water systems) and fringed by the Caribbean, are home to a bewildering variety of birds and butterflies. Despite the hordes of visitors, people are generally very friendly and open. Best of all, there are still places not yet overrun.
Cabanas at Tulum
Day ?: Drive south along the Riviera Maya, a long stretch of glorious coastline south of Cancún, blessed with placid turquoise waters and heavenly beaches fringed by palms.Stay at Tulum. Posada Luna del Sur hotels own web site or Teetotum hotels own web site or Cabanas la Luna hotels own web site or Nueva Vida de Ramiro hotels own web site
Tulum, 130km south of Cancun and 3km north of the centre of the modern town that shares its name, was once home to a large Mayan city. It was built between AD400 and 900, and apparently so impressed the Spanish conquistadors that they compared it to Seville.There isn't an awful lot to see now, but the situation of the ruins, on a clifftop overlooking clear Caribbean water, makes it very popular. Go early or late to avoid the crowds (and the worst of the heat). The site opens from 7am-7pm daily, admission 40 pesos (£2.30).
Coba, around 50km north-west, is more impressive. By getting there at 8am we have the vast, jungle-covered site to ourselves for two thrilling hours. Excavations have so far uncovered two huge temple pyramids and a pelota court — where young aristos would compete for the dubious honour of having their hearts ripped out by the high priest. But the biggest thrills of this Indiana Jones film set are found deep in the surrounding jungle, where broken stelae lie hidden in the undergrowth and unexplored tombs rise like tree-covered hillocks. Besides huge pyramids and soaring stelae (stone tablets), you can wander across ancient playing fields and along miles of jungle pathways; take insect repellent and water to enjoy these to the full. Coba bears a much stronger resemblance to the magnificent ruins of Tikal, in neighbouring Guatemala, than to other sites in the Yucatan. Its most interesting feature is the network of paved stone avenues that cross it, which archaeologists think had religious significance rather than practical purpose. The other thing to look out for is the site's restored ball court. Not dissimilar to a basketball court, but with a large stone hoop on the wall half way up the court, it was apparently used for playing a gruesome, ritualistic game, common to pre-Columbian cultures in the area. Depending on which version of the rules you believe, either the losers or the winners were ceremoniously killed after the match. The site is open from 7am-6pm daily and entrance costs 40 pesos (£2.30).
Day ?: Drive south for 4 to 5 hours to Xcalak It is the most southern town in the state of Quintana Roo, just 7 miles by water from the Central American country of Belize. Xcalak has the look and feel of Mexico and Belize all rolled into one; so close to Belize that English is spoken fluently by many, but Spanish is still the predominant language. This is a great place for those who are seeking the remote, less refined areas of the Caribbean Coast, with all its natural beauty above and below the waterline. A village of approximately 400 inhabitants, Xcalak is one of the last "unspoiled" stretches of Mexican Caribbean. The world's second largest barrier reef passes just off-shore from Xcalak and it is also a departure point for dive trips to the Chinchorro Banks (Banco Chinchorro) atoll reef system. It is designated a Mexican national reef park (Parque Nacional Arrecifes de Xcalak) and is an excellent site for snorkeling, scuba diving and fly fishing. It is 60 kilometers (37 mi) South of Mahahual, the site of a new large cruise ship pier, and just north of the border with Belize. The Mahahual pier was destroyed by hurricane Dean in 2007. This section of coast is now being developed by the tourism industry and has a growing number of Americans and other expatriates investing in beach front property north of town. Casa Carolina hotels own web site or Sin Duda Villas hotels own web site
Calakmul
Day ?: Calakmul and another article is the largest Maya city uncovered. Rio Bec Dreams Hotels own web site seems to be the only place in the area
Calakmul was a major Maya superpower within the northern Peten region of the Yucatan. Calakmul administered a large domain marked by the extensive distribution of their emblem glyph of the snake head sign. Calakmul was the seat of what has been dubbed the Serpent Head Polity. This Serpent Head polity reigned, like Tikal, during most of the Classic Maya period. Calakmul itself is estimated to have had a population of 50,000 people and had governance, at times, to places as far away as 150 kilometers. There are 6,750 ancient structures identified at Calakmul the largest of which is the great pyramid at the site. Structure II is 55 meters high, making it the tallest of the Maya pyramids. Four tombs have been located within the pyramid. Like many temples or pyramids within Mesoamerica the pyramid at Calakmul increased in size by building upon the existing temple to reach its current size. The size of the central monumental architecture is approximately two square kilometers and the whole of the site; mostly covered with dense residential structures is about twenty square kilometers. Calakmul is one of the most structure-rich sites within the Maya region. The site contains 117 stelae, the largest total in the region. Most are in paired sets representing rulers and their wives. However, because these carved stelae were produced in soft limestone, most of these stelae have been eroded beyond interpretation. Also many elaborate murals were discovered at Calakmul.
Palenque
Day ?: Palenque The lost city of Palenque, until recently overgrown with jungle vegetation, looks out over the Yucatan plain of southern Mexico. The city dates from AD 650 and was one of the seats of the Maya civilisation which ruled over swathes of Central America. Many of the impressive stone buildings have survived the ravages of the tropical climate, and much of our understanding about the history of the Maya has been unearthed from this site. The bas reliefs and hieroglyphics decorating the ruins testify to the sophistication of the Maya people, but also suggest the violence of their customs and religious practice, which are thought to have included human sacrifice. The Maya civilisation died out in AD 900, although the reasons for the society’s demise remain obscure. The ruins are now part of a national park, open daily from 8am-6pm. The archaeological zone is open daily from 8am-5pm. The price of entry to the site and museum is around £1.20; there is no charge for children under 13 and adults over 60 years.
Chan Kah Resort Village hotels own web site or El Panchan hotels own web site
Campeche
Day ?: Campeche UNESCO-protected port of Campeche
Hacienda Uayamon is about a 30-minute drive from the centre of Campeche on the Gulf of Mexico. It takes about 3 hours to drive from Mérida. There are direct flights to Campeche from Mexico City. An exquisite rural hideaway, this former cattle ranch was built in 1700, and nowadays offers guests a taste of a bygone age. Luxurious creature comforts have been added without compromising its original features. The old building has been beautifully restored and repainted using warm Mexican reds and mustard yellows. 12 free-standing colonial style villas are scattered within the hacienda grounds, lending the place the feeling of a small village. These used to house the doctor, teachers and other important people of the community. Rooms have huge, sumptuous bathrooms, oversized beds, an indoor plunge pool and a terrace with double day-bed. Take advantage of the spa, or relax with a book by the pool within what remains of the old warehouse. We adore the two suites which also have an outdoor plunge pool and a small private garden. www.haciendasmexico.com
Also near Uayamon is the Mayan site of Edzna, inhabited all the way from 600BC until the 16th century. Rather like the colonial settlements that followed them, Mayan cities were based around grand squares, and Edzna has one of the most impressive of them all. Its plaza principal is a huge site surrounded by towering structures. The most breathtaking is the so-called “Five- Storey Building” — a cascade of stone, with terrace upon terrace adding up to a temple, pyramid and palace in one. One of the highlights of our visit to Campeche was an excursion to the Mayan ruins of Edzna. The are located about forty minutes from Campeche city. We had a rental car, so we were able to go there on our own, but there are tours offered from the hotels if you don't have your own transportation. When we arrived there was hardly anyone else there. It is always a plus to be able to explore ruins without hordes of tourists around. By the time we left, a couple small tour groups had arrived, but nothing that would distract from the tranquility and majesty of this site.
Uxmal Pyramid
Day ?: Take advantage of its close proximity to the Yucatan's capital city Merida or visit local sites such as a visit the magnificent temples and pyramids of Uxmal which are are only a 40 minute drive away. Uxmal, a sheer joy to wander around. In contrast to sites such as Chichen Itza and Tulum, it remains quiet — on an average day, you’ll find more resident iguanas clambering over the ruins than human visitors trying to take a snap. It wasn’t always so. In Mayan times, Uxmal was the political centre of southern Yucatan and home to 25,000 people. Its name means “thrice built” — temples built upon temples as different factions invaded and ran the city. Today, in a large forest clearing, a temple pyramid, stone columns, a palace and an ancient ball court rise up out of the earth like the secret lair of a baddie from an Indiana Jones movie. Thrillingly, there’s probably much more to find here: though the site was first excavated in 1929, undergrowth still rules, and more ruins are thought to lie beneath
Day ?: Hacienda Santa Rosa For an enroute stop. By the late 19th century, Santa Rosa (right) was a prosperous plantation, producing mostly sisal with a stock of cattle and horses. It was later taken over by the Santa Rosa co-operative, and work began on its restoration in 1997. Rooms have wooden shutters, tiled floors and outdoor hammocks. hotels own web site, Km 129 Carretera Merida Campeche, Santa Rosa, Yucatan
Forty miles from Uxmal, just off the road towards the Gulf of Mexico coast, is a restored hacienda, Santa Rosa . Airy architecture, a huge lawn, a peach-red chapel and a pool overlooked by the former processing chimney make this the most attractive of all the haciendas. And with just 11 guest rooms — most with their own petal-strewn plunge pool. The hotel is close to an intriguing driving trail known as “the route of the abandoned haciendas”. Using their chimney stacks as waymarkers, you can follow the road from Chunchucmil to Maxcanu, southwest of Merida, and pass five forgotten haciendas in little more than 15 miles. Each has its own chimney, towering and proud. Otherwise, they are ornate shells, bombed out by decades of neglect: a tumbledown Moorish arch here; a parade of roofless stone columns there; perhaps a ballroom floor, its cavernous potholes exposing wooden beams like bones through an open wound. Nowadays, the plazas of these haciendas are football pitches, and kids clamber over rusty machinery that was once the envy of the world.
Day ?:.Drive to colonial Mérida (2-3hrs), the agreeable white-stone capital of the Yucatán. Although the city has Mayan roots, Merida today looks every bit the classic Spanish city, with the pastel- coloured houses of the first conquistadors much in evidence. Its wide-open plazas still remain the focal points of civilised city life, and Sunday is a particularly good day to visit: the streets are colonised by markets and on every other corner a different band plays, competing with the constant cry of the ice-cream vendors.
Los Arcos hotels own web site B&B with good write ups on TripAdvisor Similarly Cascadas de Merida hotels own web site Similarly B&B Merida Santiago hotels own web site
Hacienda Temozón for a four-night stay with breakfast. Once owned by a relative of Francisco de Montejo - the conqueror of the Yucatan peninsula and founder of Merida - the hacienda was a livestock, corn and sisal estate before being converted into a luxury hotel in 1997. www.haciendasmexico.com Not far east of Santa Rosa is Temozon , the largest and most opulent of the restored haciendas — more spectacular rooms, an even more expansive pool. Originally a cattle ranch, by the late 19th century Temozon was one of the most productive sisal plants in Mexico, its success reflected in the opulence of its buildings. Recent restoration has not meant sterilisation. Not every crumbling wall has been rebuilt, and as an artistic statement, giant tears in the bright paintwork remain. Peacocks roam the gardens, adding to the atmosphere of chaotic colour, while the vast grounds are littered with relics of the past — giant storage trunks, railway cargo carriages and fraying hammocks strung from tropical trees. Temozon is the ideal base from which to visit the colonial city of Merida, just over 20 miles away.
Or Hacienda Xcanatún Hacienda Xcanatún own web site, an 18th century sisal-producing hacienda. Suites are set around tropical gardens, with 2 pools and a spa. 3 nights here gives you time to explore the nearby ruins and visit Mérida.
Or Hacienda San José Although the interior has been given a makeover, original features such as the exposed beams and thatched roof www.haciendasmexico.com, Km 30 Carretera Tixkokob-Tekanto, Tixkokob. Hacienda San Jose, in Tixkokob, is the very picture of industry made beautiful, with lavender-painted archways, a pool splendidly converted from an old water tank and beds suspended from wooden beams. Chichen Itza itself is an hour and a half away, along the main road towards Cancun.
Or Misión de Fray Diego,a converted 17th century convent, for 3 nights hotels own web site
Chichen Itza
Day ?: Drive on to Chichén Itzá, without doubt one of Mexico’s most visited and impressive archaeological sites. Take a guided tour of its pyramids, plazas and ball courts - some of the best preserved in the Mayan World.
Stay overnight (with breakfast) at the nearby Hacienda Chichén Itzá with rooms within the main building or bungalows in the verdant tropical garden. Located near the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, Chichen is one of the oldest haciendas in Yucatan. It now features a large outdoor swimming pool. www.haciendachichen.com Or overnight at the Hacienda Mayaland http://www.mayaland.com/
The vast complex of Chichen Itza was founded by the Mayans in about AD700, and later taken over by the warmongering Toltecas, from central Mexico. At the site today, all spheres of Mayan and Tolteca society are on display: administrative, religious and recreational. Most imposing is the castle, a vast pyramid with exactly 365 steps on all four sides — the Mayans are thought to have used it as a grand stone calendar. There are also ornate temples and a sacrificial pond, but most interesting of all is the huge Gran Juego de Pelota, the Mayan version of Old Trafford. The Juego is an enormous stone-walled stadium with viewing stands hewn from rock; the rules of the game it hosted are lost to the ages. Mounted high on the longest walls are two stone rings, and it’s thought victory was achieved with a shot through either — rather like Quidditch, but without, one assumes, the broomsticks. Carvings on the side of the arena make one thing very clear, however. After the match, someone — the best guess is the losing captain, but some think the entire losing team — was beheaded in a sacrificial ritual.
Ek Balam
Ek Balam (Dark Jaguar) is one of the oldest Mayan sites and was a centre of power until about AD 1200 when it was eclipsed by Chichén Itzá. (In the long run, Chichén Itzá did worse – now the most famous of Mexican ruins, it is besieged daily by thousands of tourists.) Fearful of attack by their powerful neighbours, the city's rulers buried the Acropolis under a layer of clay. Subsumed by vegetation, the site was forgotten for 800 years; exploration and restoration did not begin until the Nineties. Visitors have only been allowed in since 1997.
The road to Ek Balam is easy to miss and peppered with potholes: it's hard to believe there could be anything at the end. The entrance is just as unassuming – a grey wall with a couple of bicycles propped against it. As soon as we stepped away from it we were on our own in the canopy. An old Mayan road leads through the trees to a series of low walls which mark the real entrance into the city. A local guide waiting there told us, "When I was a child, we played on top of the temples. We didn't know what they were. Now, most of us work here." We strolled through a four-sided arch towards the great Oval Palace, which looks like a fortified medieval village, its thick outer walls curling around like a snail shell. The sun was fierce and the steps high, but the view from the top was almost mystical: undisturbed hillocks pushing through the leaves, interspersed with excavated pyramids, and not a tripper to be seen. It was a relief to come down to the shady gardens, where we lay for a while before climbing the Acropolis. One of the largest buildings uncovered in Mesoamerica, it's an extraordinary monument, immaculately preserved by the clay that buried it. The rooms at the base, which hold intricate frescoes and carvings, are splendid enough but the stucco façade near the summit is the real find. It's the only sculpture of its type – any others rotted long ago. Winged warriors and animals cavort around a monstrous mouth that guards the underworld in a complex depiction of the chain of life.
The village of Ek Balam, just over a mile away, is well worth visiting. Nearly all the homes are wooden huts, open to the world; turkeys wander the tracks freely and the only signs of modernity are the satellite dishes that adorn every roof. There are two hotels: Genesis Retreat sounded idyllic – and probably was a couple of years ago. It's a little past its best now; we arrived to renovations, metal bashing concrete reverberating around the grounds. Mosquito nets were full of holes and there was dust everywhere. But the garden was lovely and the owner's dogs and parrots very welcoming. Elsewhere, Italian-run Dolcemente Hotels own web site offers air-conditioning and cocktails.
Nearby Valladolid has plenty of attractions, not least the spectacular cenote Dzitnup, where you can swim among the stalactites. Hotel Maria de la Luz in the main square is clean and comfortable, with a wonderful restaurant. Try cochinita pibil, pork marinated in bitter orange juice and baked in banana leaves. Outrageously good.
Posada Mawimbi
Day ?: Isla Holbox. Experience indigenous food in Oaxaca, Indian village culture and relax on the remote Isla Holbox, where Whale sharks can be seen from June to September. Drive to the port at Chiquilá and take a 20-minute motorboat to Isla Holbox for 3 nights on the beach.
Casa las Tortugas hotels own web site or Dream Hotel hotels own web site or Hotel Mawimbi hotels own web site or Villa los Mapaches hotels own web site or La Palapa hotel own web site
Isla Holbox, off the north-eastern coast, is two hours from Valladolid. Developers plan to build a resort here to rival Cancun; for now, though, the island still sleeps in the balmy sun. There are no paved roads on Holbox, nor are there likely to be any soon. The islanders want tourism on their own terms: roads bring masses of visitors, who would inevitably destroy the life they know. And so when you step off the boat from Chiquila, you see only golf carts and mopeds moving languidly through the streets. Within five minutes we were walking more slowly, sinking into the local rhythm. Holbox is a throwback to a better era, before high-rise buildings or high-powered careers. Peek into brightly coloured houses and you'll see someone "enjoying the hammock".
The best places to eat – a pink family-run café in the main square – and the best place for cocktails on the beach, Casa Las Tortugas. The bedrooms there were honeymoon-perfect and reasonably priced. We settled for mojitos on the hanging beds at sunset.
The days slide away easily; prolonged breakfasts on the white sand slip into late lunch and more sunbathing. There are more than 15 miles (24km) of virgin beaches, all open to the world. Pelicans hover above the shore, diving into the surf to grab enormous fish that slip from their beaks before they can eat them. Between December and May, flamingos congregate in lagoons around the island and turtles come to nest in June. In high summer, it's the turn of the gentle whale sharks, which feed a few miles off the coast. "It's hard to live in paradise, isn't it?" asked Manuel, the lovely ice cream seller we chatted to every day. I couldn't agree; the only hard thing about Holbox was coming home. Despite the islanders' efforts, it may be destroyed in five years, so the time to go is now. Just don't expect to find a five-star hotel.
Back to mainland a couple of hours to Cancun Airport. Drop the car at Cancún airport before onward connections.
Tikal in Guatamala