Deep in the remote southern area along the border with Guatemala, recent excavations have exposed remains of pyramids and cities that until recently, were nearly impossible to reach. Hieroglyphic texts found here are changing our knowledge of the Maya by revealing history that has been hidden for more than one thousand years. So what is the...Read More
Five hundred years ago the first contact between the great civilizations of Mesoamerica and Europe was just beginning. But it did not begin with Cortes’ landing in Mexico in 1519. Eight years earlier, a small lifeboat from a shipwrecked Spanish vessel drifted ashore on the southern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The local Maya did not...Read More
The Toltecs are the most mysterious and controversial group from ancient Mesoamerica. The interpretation of their importance to the greater cultural traditions of the region have ranged from seeing them as the “mother culture” from which all others sprang, to a group that didn’t even exist historically and were nothing but a figment of the Aztec...Read More
Cambodia… The alarm clock sounds at 5:15am; it is still dark despite the curtains being drawn. I’m not a morning person by nature, but by now – our sixth day on the trip – I am used to our departures at dawn… And, moreover, I understand their importance in our constant struggle to beat the...Read More
No Bañarse! by Sara Barbieri, Tour Manager (on January 2009 trip) When you are traipsing through the jungle in the pouring rain feeling the water seep through your clothes, you do begin to wonder what you are doing—oh yes, stalking a Maya ruin at Yaxha! The world around you is still and green and there...Read More
