Bietjie hitte

Dis vandag so koud in Windhoek dat ek onmiddelik weer iets oor Sunny Belize opsit; danksy die bydraes van Chrystal Vernon. Sy swem rustig in die see rond en kyk Whale sharks van naby, terwyl ons bibber van die koue.

Temples and tapirs, rainforests and reefs, villages and volcanoes, The Maya Route is a trail littered with adventure and cultural richness.

In the lowlands of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and southern Mexico steamy rainforests, replete with wildlife, preserve thousands of soil-covered ruined cities built by an ancient Maya Empire that rose with the Romans and slowly declined in Europe’s Middle Ages.

Only a handful of their glorious temples have been stripped of their forest cover, revealing jade masks and jewellery, elaborate sarcophagi and crystal death skulls. Their giant, denuded roofcombs still tower over the forest canopy like sentinels.

But although their empire has gone, the Maya themselves are as alive and well as the Greeks or Romans. The Spanish did all they could to obliterate them and their culture burning all but a handful of their books and dividing and re-locating their peoples all across the southern reaches of New Spain.

Yet Mayan cultures and languages remain intact. In the villages of Chiapas and the Guatemalan highlands, markets sell clothing, arts and crafts and pottery whose designs long predate the arrival of the Europeans alongside travellers’ hippie slacks, bags and crystals.

On hillside shrines and within Catholic churches throughout the Maya World, copal is burned and ancient rituals still practised (albeit under the outward form of Catholicism). Only where the Protestant evangelists have arrived are Maya peoples abandoning their identity.

The landscapes of the Maya World are astonishingly beautiful. The highlands of El Salvador and Guatemala smoke with towering volcanoes swathed in pine forests; deeply folded valleys hide long blue lakes and rushing white-water rivers. White-pepper-fine sands lapped by bath-water warm seas fringe the Mexican and Belize Caribbean coasts. And hundreds of tiny islands surrounded by coral reefs lie just a few miles offshore.

Behind the coast is the thick scrub forest of the Yucatán dotted with glorious temples and pocked with cenotes (flooded caves). And in the lowlands of Chiapas, Honduras and the El Petén region of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, there are rainforests noisy with the cries of howler monkeys and the raucous calls of parrots, and bristling with rare mahogany and zapote trees.

There’s plenty for all interests on the Maya Route for culture lovers and adrenalin addicts to those seeking R’ n’ R in a spa or too many beers in a beachside bar. You could spend a lifetime unravelling the complexities of Mayan mythology, or a few days diving, rafting or lazing on a beach.

But Cancún’s commercial success is quickly spreading south and the

Maya Route

is steadily becoming McMaya. In the wake of such commercialism the local people are finding it increasingly hard to preserve their traditional ways. Visitors with a genuine interest in the Maya can make the difference.

Maya Route

: Unmissables

Tulum: Powder-fine, white-sand beaches watched over by cliff top Mayan temples

Uxmal & the Puuc sites: Imposing ruined cities decorated with some of the finest indigenous art in the Western hemisphere

Tikal: Dramatic Mayan temples in the midst of pristine rainforest busy with macaws and howler monkeys

Palenque & Bonampak: Two of the Maya World’s most beautifully crafted temple cities lost in lush rainforest near the Usumacinta River

San Cristóbal de Las Casas: The thriving mountain heartland of the Mexican Maya and one of the most attractive Mexican colonial cities

Chichicastenango: Central America’s most vibrant and colourful market, a great place for souvenirs