An excellent road to actively relax and learn: the Maya World, resulting from the interconnection between five Latin American nations, many of which border with the Caribbean Sea.

A spirit of feathers and colors reigns over the scenery of a purely American vestige, that is now at the disposal of the most demanding tourist. This is one of the most ambitious and enriching projects: the Maya Route. It entails a sense of harmonization that allows the recreation of culture, history, ecology, and contact with millenarian peoples with their own ways of life and manners of artistic creation. You are faced with a route of the unexpected, which you can go through many times and you will always find something new. It is for this reason that experts in world tourism speak of the prodigious vitality of this surprising path. This is the case of 500,000 square kilometers that stretch along the tourist route called Maya World, Mayab or Maya Pass. This extension of land includes territories of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico and Belize. Very recent official data on this project mention that the National Fund for the Development of Tourism in Mexico will invest 50 million dollars in the next three years to build the basic infrastructure for the Maya Pass, mainly in the southeastern state of Yucatan. This is thought to be the territory of the Mayas, an indigenous civilization with an inexplicable origin, which some specialists have traced to the south of the present territory of the United States. There is evidence proving the existence of this human group two thousand years ago around Tabasco and Chiapas, a Mexican calcareous plain having today the city of Merida in its center. The Mayas built an empire that flourished between the 4th century A.D. and the year 1697, when the Spaniards were already in America. Very tall pyramids truncated in their tops, and temples like Uaxactun, Uzmal and Chichen Itza are their most characteristic signs. The list of aboriginal finds include a common language, a vigesimal numerical system, knowledge of writing, paintings, rites, and dances. Maya Indians live there today as they used to before, and they observe their customs. Their women still wear those multicolored tunics they call huipiles. As their ancestors did, they grow corn and venerate more than 100 gods. That world includes plains, mountains, narrow passages, jungles, active volcanoes, swamps, coralline formations, caves, wide rivers as the Usumacinta or the Grijalva, such exotic beaches as those in Cancun, paradise-appealing islands as Mujeres, Cozumel and Roatan, or unforgettable places as Key Ambergris. In the Maya World coexist 18,300 species of plants and a kingdom of such interesting animals. But man left so many unraveled mysteries in this route that still today the scholars wonder why the Mayas moved their city-states from one place to another before the Spanish colonization. There are several hypotheses on this matter, considering a natural disaster or a people’s rebellion against their leaders. To this end, in May 1993, the Presidents of Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and the Primer Minister of Belize, visited Palenque, Tikal and Copan. Two months before the Presidents’ visit, U.S. archaeologist Robert Sharer, from the University of Pennsylvania, and an international group, had discovered in Copan, Honduras, a Maya tomb probably dating from 1400 years before. That finding could correspond to the funeral grave of the first Maya King in this city, Yax Ku’k mo, who died in 436 AD. It is so assumed because the tombs of Kings Waterlily-Jaguar and Moon-Jaguar had been found before. These were among the four most important Maya Kings that researchers have been able to situate in time. This attraction brought about an increase in international interest in visiting that world, that between the 18th and 19th centuries received its first explorers to uncover very rich pyramids and routes that were hidden in the wilderness. Access to those places is much easier today with tourist packages, but in the old times it took a lot of courage to visit those regions, and much more to follow the footsteps of the Mayas in books and crypts to uncover them, as did those coming from North America, Great Britain and France. This effort by the leaders of those countries is really admirable, as it firmly supports the intent of the Ibero-American Summits on fostering relations amongst the nations of the region, and the preservation of traditions and ancient cultures as that of the Mayas. Many people believe that tourism is not just an activity that provides relaxation and rest in comfortable hotels, but a means of sharing knowledge around the world. This is vitally important, because the region of the Maya Route is today an area of poverty in terms of the standard of living in many places, but rich in history and nature. The dreams of some Indians like those that built Palenque, Tikal o Uxmal, Itzamna, are still to come true in a land where the God of Knowledge still seems to rule life. THE MAYA WORLD EMBRACES A CULTURAL AND NATURAL UNIVERSE The region of the Maya Route spreads over 500,000 square kilometers, inhabited by four million Maya Indians. There are around two thousand places of interest in this region that treasures three thousand years of history. It is a very poor region, officials of the Mexican government say, and for this reason our policy is to assist it by means of tourism, an important source of employment that favors the conservation of traditions and culture. In the Maya World there are more than 70,000 hotel rooms, 11 international airports and 43 tourist resorts, making the region significant and interesting. It is a world of rivers, ponds and woods, that rises in the middle of a jungle that is capable of pleasing the most demanding visitor. Amongst the main axis of that route are vestiges of Cichen Itza and Uxmal in Yucatan, Tulum in Quintana Roo, Palenque in Chiapas, Tikal in the center of the Guatemalan Peten, and the city of Copan in Honduras. Only in Mexico they receive an average of 80 million foreign tourists, 20 million of which stay in hotels and around 66 million make short trips, according to official sources. The Mexican Maya spreads over five states: Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Campeche, Chiapas and Yucatan. The beach resort in Cancun has become the entrance to this marvelous space. More than 30 gods appear in the Codex of Dresden, and an 18th century manuscript considers 166. Amongst the latter is Itzamna (House of the Lizard), on top of the list of the Maya gods. Itzamna’s wife is Ixchel, Goddess of the Moon. Other deities are Ah Kinchil, God of the Sun; Chaac, of the Rain; Yam Kax, of Corn; Kukulcan, the Governor; and Ek Chuah, God of Commerce. In the Maya World there are 8,000 species of plants, 600 kinds of birds and 200 of butterflies. All these beauties are found in a space that is smaller than Texas, in an area that was isolated for100 million years and is now rediscovered for tourism. In the Maya Route there are important reserves, such as Mexico’s Montes Azules, in Chiapas, with 331,200 hectares (reserve of the biosphere), El Triunfo (Chiapas), La Encrucijada (Chiapas), Canon del Sumidero, Lagos de Montebello, Palenque, Agua Azul and El Ocate. Other Mexican reserves are Centla (Tabasco), Calakmul (Campeche), Rio Lagartos (Yucatan), Sian Ka’an (Quintana Roo), Contoy (Quintana Roo), Cozumel, Mujeres Island, Cancun (Quintana Roo), and Punta Laguna (Quintana Roo). In Belize there are the reserves of Bermudian Landing Community, Babboon Sanctuary, Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Reserve, Rio Bravo, Hol Chan Marine Reserve, Guanacaste Park, Mountain Pine Ridge, Society Hall and Crooked Tree. Guatemala’s Maya reserves are found in a 1.4 million hectares, and some of them are Biotopo del Quetzal, Mario Dary and Biotopo Chocon Machacas. Some Honduran reserves are Rio Platana, Pico Bonito, La Tigra, Celaque, Cuero y Salado, Cerro Azul, Azul Meambar, Santa Barbara, Cusuco, Yoro, Punta Sal Micos, Pico Pijol, Lantecilla Botanical Garden, Islands in the Bay, and the Submarine Reserve. This system of reserves is completed with those in El Salvador: Montecristo, El Trifinio, Cerro Verde and Lake Coatepeque, Izalco Volcano. The coasts of the Maya Route also have their own history related with pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries, when they besieged the ports of Campeche, Bacalar, Omoa and Trujillo. The search for treasures was extremely common in this zone, where there are still traces of that activity. Amongst the most outstanding names of pirates, buccaneers and freebooters are those of Henry Morgan, Diego The Brown, Lorenzillo, Wooden Leg Cornelio Jols and Agramon, who chased Spanish ships that carried riches, gold and silver extracted from South-American mines to the Crown in Spain.