Central America Archives

Volcan Concepcion Hike, Ometepe Island, Lake Nicaragua

View of Volcan Maderas from Volcan Concepcion — View of Ometepe Island and Lake Nicaragua from the concepcion volcano

I first heard about Nicaragua‘s Concepcion volcano while doing the Tongariro Crossing hike in New Zealand (after a ski season in Queenstown), about how this active volcano along with its smaller near-neighbour Volcan Maderas forms a beautiful figure-of-8 shaped island (Ometepe Island) in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. I learned this from two English guys I was doing the Tongariro hike with, who were also backpacking around the world but in the opposite direction; they’d said it was a tough climb, but they’d also said that the stunning location and incredible views made it a great climb, and so that was the Central American volcano we (my then-girlfriend and I) found ourselves climbing a few weeks later (following my quest for the Mysterious Cities of Gold)

The Concepcion volcano visible across the lake while waiting for the boat to Ometepe island — View of the Concepcion volcano across Lake Nicaragua as we waited to board the boat to Ometepe island

Getting across Lake Nicaragua in the first place – a lake, but the size of a small sea – was almost more gruelling than climbing the volcano. The boats leave from San Jorge on the lake’s southern shore, but we were too late for the larger car ferry and had to go on one of the small boats which didn’t look very lakeworthy, never mind seaworthy. The wind was right up that day and the lake’s surface was chopped up into small, rapid waves which tossed our little boat about such that it really did feel a bit like being in a washing machine. Our stomachs both held out for the shortish crossing, but the scene on board was a misery of vomiting and it was a great relief to reach the terra firma of Ometepe. Needless to say, when we left the island a few days later we made sure to catch the car ferry and thus were able to enjoy a nice relaxing crossing, enjoying the views of Volcan Concepcion and Volcan Maderas instead of the views of peoples’ lunches being spewed over the side. In short, take the ferry!

(a word of caution though; the large bags all get piled up in a luggage area, separate from the seating, and a bunch of island youths boarded the ferry and then as it departed practised their dives and backflips off the side and swam back to shore… it was great watching their acrobatics, but try to make sure your bag isn’t on top of the pile – mine was, and someone (one of the divers, I would imagine) went into a side pocket and took my first aid kit. No great loss, and I hope the contents came in useful for someone, but do double check you have all valuables with you and not in your big bag)

Rough crossing on Lake Nicaragua to Ometepe — Lake Nicaragua gets very choppy when it’s windy, making for a rough crossing

Once on Ometepe Island, we took a bus around to Altagracia on the far side of Volcan Concepcion. We were planning to work out the climbing route and whether or not we needed a guide once we arrived in town, but as it turned out we were greeted off the bus by a waiting guide offering his services for the following day, a wiry middle-aged local man who spoke very little English and who we took an immediate liking to. He explained that he already had one customer (from Australia) signed up for the morning, and asked if we would like to join them to make it a group of four. I don’t recall his price, but it was very reasonable – a good day’s earnings for him, and for us a bit less than we’d have paid to a tour agency (the benefits of cutting out the middle man!). He knew what he was doing, he know where we were going, and he had a calm and patient demeanour… as to whether he actually had the skills to bail us out if we got into trouble, I have no idea and we didn’t have to find out – but we did climb Volcan Concepcion while it was actually erupting! With volcanic gas spewing from the crater like that, it would definitely have been off-limits had it been located in Japan or New Zealand, but with the lax health and safety laws in Nicaragua we could climb it anyway. Our guide took us up the appropriate route to keep the wind behind us so that the gases were blowing away from us… I suppose we’d have had a problem if the wind had changed direction, but our man seemed perfectly confident and we decided to trust him. If things had gone wrong it would have been our fault for climbing an erupting volcano, but we chanced it and we got away with it. Perhaps not the smartest decision, especially considering the awful loss of life in the recent eruption of Japan’s Ontake, for example… health and safety laws exist for good reason. But with that said, it really was pretty amazing being up there on the crater’s edge – lying flat on the rim, behind us was the incredible view of Ometepe Island’s figure-8 surrounded by the deep blue of Lake Nicaragua, and before us we could peek over the lip into the rancid gaseous nothingness spewing out of the crater while holding firmly on to our hats – the wind was absolutely blasting over the rim and to stand up would probably have resulted in being blown clean off the top and into the crater with fatal results. An awesome memory, but one which we unfortunately didn’t get any pictures of as our camera battery had run out before the top and our Aussie companion never came through with the promised email of his pictures… no point in speculating as to why not, but this was before Facebook and wifi were ubiquitous and it’s funny to think about how much harder it was to share pictures not so long ago (the pic at the top of the page was the highest one we got)

The climb itself is really quite tough work, a proper slog up the steep sides of the volcano, but the view gets better and better as you ascend. We started, very early in the morning, by hitching a ride from town to the trailhead in the back of a passing truck, and then hiking up the first 1,000m or so through the jungle. That was hot, sweaty work, but after we emerged above the tree line it became one long scramble up the increasingly steep final 600m over loose volcanic scree, which meant two steps forward, one step back, the whole way up. At 1,600m it’s not a huge mountain, but it was harder work physically than, say, Mt Kinabalu which is 2,500m taller (though you don’t have to worry about altitude effects, as Volcan Concepcion isn’t high enough). We were up and down again in just about six hours or so, but my legs felt it for days afterwards – the next day was pretty much a write-off. As we were descending the final bit of the trail, which passes through farmers’ fields and banana plantations, our guide stopped and chopped us all a banana down (he assured us that he was friends with the plantation owner), and that was surely the most delicious banana I have ever eaten or ever will! That was followed with fish soup back at our guesthouse, which turned out to be a bowl of soup with the entire cooked fish laid across it – and this was like no fish I’ve ever seen, but more like some sort of prehistoric lake monster… I could’ve eaten a horse right then though, so lake dinosaur soup was a good call. The Concepcion volcano hike is a tough but rewarding day hike, though if you want something a bit more chilled then Volcan Maderas is apparently much easier; and if you don’t fancy hiking, you can rent bikes instead and explore the island, or just chill out by the lake. Whatever you do there, Ometepe Island is an awesome travel destination and worth including on any Central American itinerary.

Have you been to Lake Nicaragua or climbed the Concepcion volcano? How was it? Any questions about Volcan Concepcion or Ometepe island? Leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

See my Nicaragua overland travel page here

Make sure you have a good insurance policy. World Nomads offer flexible travel insurance you can buy even if already overseas – most travel insurance companies won’t cover you if you’ve already left your country, and this can be a crucial point as I once found out the hard way in Thailand

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Cenote Cavern Diving, Mexico

Central America, Scuba

I only did one dive in Mexico – my budget was really tight and most of what I had available for diving while backpacking through Central America was earmarked for finishing my Advanced Open Water when we reached Utila in Honduras – but it was a good one. I made sure the one dive I did was the unique and spectacular experience of cavern diving in the cenotes of Yucatan.

The cenotes are sinkholes giving access to underwater cave systems lying just below the surface, and diving in them is a whole new experience. It’s freshwater, so the visibility is epic – you can see however far the cave layout gives you a line of sight, or however far your torch beam reaches when there’s no natural light.

You swim through a series of narrow tunnels connecting larger caverns, some of which have natural light coming down through the sinkholes above. As you go through the tunnels and the dark caves, you’re relying on electric light – it’s really quite breathtaking when you then turn a corner and there in front of you is a cavern full of rock formations lit in a glorious blue from the sunlight shining down through the hole above. Due to the freshwater you see it all absolutely crystal clear, and it really does almost seem that you’re flying through air rather than swimming through water.

Cavern diving’s definitely not for the claustrophobic – due to the narrow passages you swim through you have to go in single file, while swimming with a frog’s leg motion to avoid kicking up clouds of silt from the floor into the face of the person behind you. You also spend much of the dive with a roof overhead, making emergency ascents impossible; the dive masters who guide you know the cave systems like the backs of their hands though, and assure that they know the fastest route out from any given point. They also know the locations of air pockets in the roof which they can take you up to if anyone has a problem, and they take you up to one just to check it out; it’s pretty surreal popping your head up into air, just below the rock ceiling, taking your regulators out, and having a quick chat! There’s also a bizarre visual effect when you’re submerged and looking up at the air pockets and bubbles against the ceiling, the smaller trapped bubbles reminiscent of the liquid metal effects in Terminator 2, and the larger air pockets looking like some sort of teleportation portal or rift in reality. It’s hard to describe, but your eyes don’t really know what they’re trying process, or something like that.

It occurs while you’re down there that you’re completely reliant on your dive master’s knowledge of the system; were they to get into some sort of trouble, lose consciousness or whatever, you’d all be completely fucked. You’d almost certainly perish, so again – this isn’t a dive for the claustrophobic!

Plenty of people have died down there, but usually because they were exploring and went too far or got lost; skull & crossbones signs mark the point you can’t go past on a guided cavern dive.

In terms of fish life, there isn’t much to see other than small numbers of cave shrimp and some tiny blind fish (they live in the dark, feeding off bat droppings from the sinkholes), and of course there’s no coral; but the amazing spectacle of the sun-dappled caverns, and the unique experience of swimming through those tunnels in the dark, makes this one of the most memorable dives you’ll ever do.

Have you been cenote diving? How was it? Leave a comment below!

We dived at Dos Ojos Cenote, located between Tulum & Playa del Carmen (the two towns are just an hour apart and it can easily be visited from either); Tulum’s the closest place to stay and is a great spot, also being home to a stunning beach and an ancient Mayan site.

Search Hotels Combined for deals in Tulum and Playa del Carmen

See here for more scuba posts, and see my main Mexico page here

Make sure you’re covered for diving – World Nomads is my go-to for travel insurance, check out their scuba cover here

These are affiliate links i.e. if you use them to book accommodation or purchase insurance, 4corners7seas will receive a commission from them – this commission comes out of their profit margin at no extra cost to you. I’m recommending them because I know and trust them from personal use; thank you in advance should you choose to use my links.

Utila, Honduras

Central America, Scuba

Utila is one of the Bay Islands off the northern coast of Honduras, and is often referred to as the Ko Tao of Central America – that is, the place where all the backpackers go to party and learn to dive.

While the comparison does broadly make sense, the two aren’t quite of a kind. While partying on Ko Tao means dancing to techno all night on the beach while getting smashed on Sang Som buckets, the partying on Utila is more along the lines of a few beers over poker; and the diving itself at Utila is more rewarding than at Ko Tao (in my opinion, anyway), with more impressive reef and the sites in better condition. There’s also the possibility of whale shark encounters, with the best seasons being March-April & September-December. (Ko Tao is also a known whale shark spot, though the frequency is lower and you need to get lucky… if you really, really want to see them, I can recommend Donsol in the Philippines)

I went to Utila with my then girlfriend, who did her Open Water there; whereas I’d learned on Ko Tao in a group of 8 with 2 instructors, she learned as one of only two students with one instructor – this would usually be a good point of course, but unfortunately it turned out the instructor was very inexperienced (as in newly qualified and very first course) and she didn’t feel entirely confident at the end of the course, but it illustrates why Utila has much less of a ‘scuba factory’ feel to it. Meanwhile I completed the remaining dive required for my Advanced Open Water, for which I had an instructor to myself, before doing some fun diving.

Another difference is the lack of a beach scene on Utila. Ko Tao has a lovely long stretch of sand running all the way down its west coast where most of the dive schools are located; Utila does have a small beach (Chepes Beach) at one end of town but it’s not much to get excited about, so most of your lounging around is probably going to be done at your accommodation, dive school bar, or the cafes and bars around town. Still looks lovely though:

Utila, Honduras

Speaking of which, Utila is very well catered for – one bar in particular called Treetanic stands out, looking as it does like something straight out of a fairytale. Treetanic’s located at Jade Seahorse, the owners of which are artists (from the States), and the place is like a living piece of art and an ongoing project. Check it out on their website here

It’s also home to lots of these magnificent orb spiders:

Orb spider in Utila, Honduras

They mostly hang out high overhead, but walking around the pathways and footbridges of Treetanic’s fantasy garden at night we ended up plastered in many strands of some very thick & sticky spider silk. Arachnophobes may want to check it out by day in order to avoid running around back there in the dark…

Access to Utila is usually by ferry from La Ceiba, itself a few hours by bus from San Pedro Sula. Neither city is a particularly nice place to be stuck for the night, especially SPS (we ended up staying a night in each); if you’re aiming for Utila but won’t make it that day, it’s preferable to push on to La Ceiba in the evening then get up and catch the early ferry. When leaving Utila, catching the early morning ferry means you can clear both cities that day and make it to e.g. Copan (famous for its Mayan ruins) by evening (we missed the morning ferry as our passports were stuck in the hostel safe when the receptionist decided to turn up for work half an hour late, hence we got stuck in SPS that night)

There are also a couple of 40-minute flights per week from SPS to Utila’s small airstrip if you don’t fancy the overland trip.

Utila’s larger neighbour Roatan is also a famous scuba island, with a more upmarket tourism industry. Roatan’s also accessed by boat from La Ceiba or by air, with flights from San Pedro Sula as well as direct flights from various US airports. There are direct boats between Utila & Roatan several days per week as described here.

See my Honduras overland travel guide for more on getting around Honduras.

Have you been to Utila? How was it? Leave a comment below!

Search Hotels Combined for accommodation in Utila

See here for more scuba posts

Make sure you’re covered for diving – World Nomads is my go-to for travel insurance, check out their scuba cover here

These are affiliate links i.e. if you use them to book accommodation or purchase insurance, 4corners7seas will receive a commission – this commission comes out of their profit margin at no extra cost to you. I’m recommending them because I know and trust them from personal use; thank you in advance should you choose to use my links.

Following the Path of the Setting Sun that Leads to El Dorado and… The Mysterious Cities of Gold! (Central American travel for 80s cartoon geeks)

Central America, Movies & TV

It may well only be because I grew up in the 1980s and therefore have nostalgia for that time, but it seems to me that the 80s were something of a golden decade for kid’s cartoons – Transformers, Ninja Turtles, and Thundercats, to name a few, are the stuff of childhood memories. The slew of recent big screen movie versions of 80s cartoons is evidence of how cherished they are by a generation – Hollywood knows this and seeks to cash in, though unfortunately they put douchebags like Michael Bay in charge and the results are predictably shit. But actually, having said that, going back and watching most of those cartoons again today is also pretty disappointing – aside from the pleasant feelings of nostalgia they induce, they do tend to be a bit crap. All but one:

The Mysterious Cities of Gold

There’s one 80s cartoon I’ve watched again as an adult and still absolutely loved, and it was the one that made the greatest impression on me as a kid; in fact, I honestly think it’s one of the reasons I ended up so obsessed with travelling and exploring the world (it was certainly the earliest influence I can recall for my wanderlust, perhaps along with The Hobbit). More specifically, it made me want to go to Latin America and see the ruins of the ancient Mayan and Inca cities – those readers who know it will probably already be humming the tune in their heads by now:

The Mysterious Cities Of Gold was a Japanese-animated, French-written & produced, historical mystery adventure which in places veered wildly off into the realms of science fiction. Set in the 1500s during the Spanish conquest of Latin America, it told the story of Esteban, a young Spanish orphan in possession of a mysterious gold amulet who goes to South America on a Spanish galleon, picking up his companions Zia (who also has a medallion) and Tao plus a few others (trustworthy and otherwise), and going on a quest to find the fabled cities of gold and, hopefully, the meaning of his amulet and the answers to his identity and destiny. Along the way they acquire a solar powered galleon and a solar powered aeroplane in the form of a golden condor, the gold-obsessed conquistadors pursuing them at every turn, and end up in Central America doing battle with the Olmecs – a pointy-eared alien-looking race with a volcano-housed solar power array, cryogenic chambers, and a death-ray equipped flying saucer in the form of a giant Olmec Head (the Olmecs were actually an early Mesoamerican civilisation, and the Olmec Heads are large stone carvings that they left on the east coast of what is now Mexico).

But I know if you’ve read this far and you’re feeling the nostalgia, the thing you really want to see is the first flight of the golden condor. So, here you go:

I hope that sends shivers down your spine! And how about that music? The same music plays during all the most awe-inspiring scenes throughout the series, and it still triggers that childhood sense of wonder when I hear it… and I’m surely not the only one – the above video is actually a fourteen minute edit someone made of bits of the cartoon featuring that music, the “song of mysterious awesomeness” as they call it. Once you’re done watching the flight of the condor, I suggest playing the video from the start as you read the rest of this post!

And here are the reimagined sci-fi Olmecs:

The Olmecs, as depicted in The Mysterious Cities of Gold — The Olmecs as depicted in The Mysterious Cities of Gold, as primary antagonists in the show’s final episodes

The Olmec flying machine in The Mysterious Cities of Gold — The Olmecs preparing to massacre the Mayans with their death ray flying machine

So yeah, it was all pretty far-fetched! It was also very dark in places, with first the avaricious conquistadors (looting and plundering the Inca lands) and then the Olmecs providing some pretty nasty bad guys – the Olmecs at one point capture the children and intend to use their cells to bring back the cryogenically frozen members of their people, which was some pretty full-on stuff for a 6-year old! But this giddy combination of the mystery of ancient civilisations (portrayed broadly accurately) with these utterly bonkers sci-fi elements invoked a sense of wonder which really struck a chord with my childhood self (and so many other kids at the time), and I really am not joking when I say it’s at least partly responsible for my wanderlust today.

And before I continue to the travel tips part of this post, if you didn’t already realise it the entire series (39 episodes) was released as a DVD box set a few years ago and you can buy it on Amazon here. It has absolutely stood the test of time and deserves its status as a classic, and it’s well worth watching again.

Who knows, it may even inspire you to book a trip! As I said, it definitely inspired me to travel, and this is especially true of course for my desire to travel around Latin America; I’m yet to visit South America (it’s at the top of the list along with Nepal & Tibet), but I have backpacked the length of Central America from Mexico to Panama. It’s a great region for travel, with so much to offer – beautiful beaches, towering mountains (many of which are active volcanoes), steaming jungle (and all the teeming wildlife therein), great food, even greater coffee, rum & tequila, gorgeous lakes, the faded grandeur of the old colonial architecture, great hiking and scuba diving opportunities… pretty much everything I love in a destination other than snowboarding… but the jewel, for me, was the chance to visit the Mayan ruins that I’d first seen in the Mysterious Cities of Gold and had dreamt of ever since.

My companion on this trip was my then-girlfriend, who was a great sport about me insisting on planning our route through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras to include all of the Mayan sites that were depicted in the Mysterious Cities of Gold. After much reading around fan forums, viewing of clips and googling of photos for comparison, I had a list of the ancient sites depicted or visited in the cartoon.

Which Ancient Cities Were in the Mysterious Cities of Gold?

The first part of the series takes place in South America, where they visit the Inca sites of Machu Picchu and Winay Wayna in what is now Peru. It’s near Machu Picchu that Esteban and pals obtain their golden condor flying machine, which it turns out they can control using their mysterious medallions; it flies them on autopilot up to Central America, escaping the clutches of the Spanish conquistadores and bringing them to the ruined Mayan cities, their eventual confrontation with the Olmecs, and the truth about their own pasts.

The specific Mayan cities featured in the cartoon are:

In Mexico: Chichen Itza, Palenque, and Uxmal

In Guatemala: Tikal

In Honduras: Copan

Check out these comparison shots:

The main pyramid at Chichen Itza, as seen in the Mysterious Cities of Gold intro

The golden condor flying over Chichen Itza in the Mysterious Cities of Gold intro

Steps and pillars at Chichen Itza — The same pillars at Chichen Itza

The main pyramid at Uxmal, as seen in the Mysterious Cities of Gold intro

The main pyramid at Uxmal, as seen by me — The main pyramid at Uxmal

Tikal, as seen in the Mysterious Cities of Gold intro (with Zia)

Palenque doesn’t feature in the intro sequence, but its buildings are clearly depicted in one of the episodes; likewise, Copan doesn’t feature in the intro sequence but is one of the sites they visit in an episode (Copan is particularly noted for its steles, and we see Esteban chancing upon them as he runs through the jungle).

How to Access the Mysterious Cities of Gold Sites

This map shows our route in red, and the Mayan cities featured in Mysterious Cities of Gold are blue numbers 1 – 5. Green numbers 1 & 2 are two other Mayan sites we visited which weren’t featured in the cartoon:

Map of the Mysterious Cities of Gold — Blue: 1.Chichen Itza 2.Uxmal 3.Palenque 4.Tikal 5.Copan. Green: 1.Tulum 2.Coba

Chichen Itza is located near the Mayan Riviera region (Cancun & Playa del Carmen) and can be visited as a day trip from either – bus loads of cruse ship passengers do exactly this, and it’s by far the most heavily touristed Mayan site. It’s also one of the most impressive, but the large crowds of visitors and vendors of tatty souvenir junk unfortunately rob it of any deep sense of mystery. We actually visited as a stop en route from Tulum (another Mayan site – see below) to Merida; catching the first bus from Tulum to Chichen Itza, we left our backpacks at the luggage office in the bus terminal there while we checked out the ruins for a few hours, then jumped onto another bus to Merida, arriving in the evening.

Uxmal is located near Merida, but the only way we could find to visit it was on a guided tour; not usually my thing, but I just had to see it because it’s this:

We booked the tour through our guesthouse in Merida, and it was a full-day job including two more minor Mayan sites in addition to Uxmal itself. Seeing the main Uxmal pyramid was awesome, but I didn’t really enjoy being ferried around in a minivan on a group tour by a guide who monotonously recited his information as though on autopilot. Due to the less straightforward access, I’d probably only recommend this one if you’re a serious history buff or Mysterious Cities of Gold fan!

Palenque is very straightforward to visit, being just outside the modern town of the same name. We simply caught a public bus from Merida to Palenque, and took a colectivo (shared taxi) to the ruins in the morning. Palenque was also the first site we visited to really spark the sense of childhood wonder I was chasing; although the buildings are less impressive and imposing than those at Uxmal and Chichen Itza, the location on a steamy jungle-clad hillside gives it a wonderfully mysterious atmosphere.

Tikal, deep in the rainforest of northern Guatemala, was the most impressive of the lot. The city itself has the best collection of pyramids we saw – of similar stature to the Uxmal pyramid, but greater in number – and is surely the most impressive ancient site I’ve yet personally seen after Angkor Wat. The remote jungle location gives it an atmospheric setting, and the wildlife alone would have been worth the visit on the day we went – we saw monkeys, tropical birds, vultures, army ants (my feet and legs got swarmed all of a sudden and I copped a few painful bites before I managed to sprint out of their way), and even a snake eating a frog – the victim was still alive and struggling when I snapped this pretty useless blurred photograph:

The pyramids of Tikal rising enigmatically above the forest canopy is quite a famous image, and one which will be familiar to Star Wars geeks as well as Mysterious Cities of Gold geeks (there’s a lot of overlap there, I know) – it was used as the rebel base on Yavin IV in the first Star Wars movie (and again in Rogue One):

The pyramids of Tikal as seen in Star Wars — The Millenium Falcon arriving at Yavin IV (screenshot from Youtube)

Tikal is near the town of Flores (a town built on an island in the middle of a lake in the middle of the jungle, which is a pretty cool place for a town); from Flores, it’s about 90 minutes by road to Tikal. You’ll want at least two nights in the area, and you can stay at one of the lodges at Tikal or a Flores hotel; we stayed in Flores for two nights, making a day trip to Tikal from there.

Copan is the name of both an ancient Mayan site, and a modern Honduran town in the same location (its full name is Copan Ruinas). To visit the ruins, simply take a bus to Copan and stay in the town for a couple of nights, and you can walk to the ruins from your hotel. Copan can be visited as a stop en route between Guatemala or El Salvador and Honduras’ Bay Islands (Central America’s main scuba diving Mecca), see my Central America travel page here for details.

The Copan ruins are also home to some boisterous and colourful locals:

All these sites are great and all worth visiting, with Tikal and Palenque the stand-outs for me. Uxmal is probably only worth going out of your way for if you’re a massive Mysterious Cities of Gold geek though!

Another point of interest for movie buffs is that Predator was partly filmed in the Palenque area, and the waterfall where Arnie has his final showdown with his alien opponent is Cascadas de Misol-Ha, located between Palenque and the beautiful mountain town of San Cristobal de las Casas; we took a minivan from Palenque to San Cristobal via Misol-Ha and another nice waterfall called Agua Azul, which was a nice little route (though I recall it being quite a long day).

The Misol-Ha waterfall — Misol-Ha waterfall; we were there during rainy season, so the volume of water is far greater than seen in Predator

Other Mayan Sites we Visited

In addition to the above Mayan sites that featured in The Mysterious Cities of Gold, we also visited the sites of Tulum on Mexico’s Caribbean coast (south of Cancun), and Coba in the jungle a short distance inland from Tulum. Although not seen in the cartoon, both are also worth visiting if you’re in the area and (despite its modest size) Tulum is particularly photogenic thanks to its cliff-top coastal location; it’s also home to lots of ctenosaurs (a large species of iguana) and these lizards are quite happy to pose for you:

Have you been to the Mayan cities in Central America? Are you a fan of The Mysterious Cities of Gold? Got any questions? Leave me a comment below!

(This page contains affiliate links i.e. if you follow the links from this page to the DVD on Amazon and make a purchase, 4corners7seas will receive a commission from Amazon. This commission comes out of Amazon’s profit margin at no extra cost to you. Thank you in advance should you choose to do so, and also congratulations because it’s fucking awesome and is money very well spent!)