Legit? Pyramids of the Rama people in Nicaragua

a reply to: Harte

It's beautiful and the remaining Maya are simply me of the most hospitable people I've ever had the pleasure to spend time with. My friend Angel always likes to convince us to visit by playing up his wife's cooking skills (and if you're a traveler and not a tourist, it's well worth the hour drive inland and he's not exaggerating her culinary fortitude) and always says to me, 'stay as long as you want any but any longer than 2 weeks and we're going put you to work and start charging you rent!' My most recent trip was a more laid back and touristy one as i brought my son down to Tulum for his first visit to a Mayan temple complex so I took it easy on him. But I highly recommended going down to The Yuc if you ever get the chance. It's 100x better if you can avoid tourist traps and sketchy guided tours but there are some really cool options available that circumvent that. If you ever want to go, shoot me a message and I can have Angel get me names of legit guides depending on where you decide to visit. Angel can take you too anywhere near Cozumel, including Tulum (a UNESCO world heritage site and rated admit the 2nd most beautiful beach in the world) and as far inland as Chichen Itza which is 2 1/2 hours drive from Cozumel. But the Maya seek to be like a giant social network and all know each other and they all can recommend "guides" but to be a guide you need a Masters degree so they're nowhere near as sketchy as it sounds.

But more to your point... yeah, there are a lot of sites in that region that were cleared plazas 1000 years ago that are covered in jungle today so it gives a decent impression of how crazy of an engineering feat it must have been to clear the area originally.