Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
or chicken dishes accompanied by rice and salad for about $8. Dinner options include a
varied assortment of meat dishes, pasta, and sandwiches. The
Jaguar Inn
caters largely to
the international backpacker crowd and makes a particularly decent place for good-value
dinners, including tasty pastas and desserts. The
Tikal Inn
gets props for its hearty break-
fasts with good, strong coffee, but there are better options for lunch and dinner.
Most people arrive here from Flores, El Remate, or Belize. See the corresponding sections
for information on how to get here. Minibuses leave Tikal from the airstrip fairly fre-
quently, particularly after about noon, heading south toward El Remate, Ixlú, and Flores.
ChangebusesatIxlúifyou'reheadingeasttoBelize.Ifallelsefails,ataxitoFloresshould
cost about $40.
ThelargestprotectedtropicalforestinNorthAmerica,this1.7million-hectare(4.3million-
acre) reserve is Guatemala's last chance for preserving a significant part of the forests that
once covered all of Petén. It is gradually gaining notoriety among international travelers
for its vast expanses of tropical forest and the remote Mayan ruins that lie buried within.
It is hoped that ecotourism here will take hold as a major industry, providing jobs and a
viable alternative to ecological destruction, as in neighboring protected areas in Belize and
CostaRica.AcursoryglanceatamapofGuatemalarevealsthatthenorthernthirdofPetén
is a sparsely populated region harboring an unusually high concentration of Mayan sites,
remote jungle wetlands, rivers, and lagoons. Those with a strong sense of adventure will
find plenty to see and do in one of Central America's last ecological frontiers.
Although the biosphere reserve has been in existence since 1990, many of the parks
that compose it remain little more than “paper parks,” as the government entities charged
withenforcingprotectionoftheseareasarewoefullyunderfundedandunderstaffed.Sever-
aloftheparksarenowbeingadministered jointlybetweenGuatemala'sNationalProtected
Areas Council (CONAP) and local conservation organizations. Foreign NGOs have also
joined the battle to preserve the Maya Biosphere for future generations against seemingly
insurmountableodds.Threateningthecontinuedexistenceofthisuniqueareaaretradition-
al factors common to tropical forests in Third World countries, including the expansion
of the agricultural frontier by land-hungry peasants and changes in land use such as cattle
grazing. But there are also more sinister forces at work here, and the reserve is under seri-
ous assault by wildlife and timber poachers, both from within Guatemala and neighboring
