|
The obvious starting point for visits to the Usumacinta valley sites of Bonampak and Yaxchilan is Palenque, where several agencies offer overland or plane trips to the sites - though you can also easily organize your own trip. If you do decide to head out on your own, you'll need to be prepared to walk, and possibly also to camp, though accommodation is increasingly available, especially at the Lacandon Maya community of Lacanha Chansayab , near the road to Bonampak. The Usumacinta valley and the Lacandon forest form Mexico's last frontier: the Carretera Fronteriza (Frontier Highway) provides access to a number of new settlements whose inhabitants are rapidly changing the forest to farmland. The road is now paved all the way round to Comitan, but you may still be discouraged from travelling beyond Benemerito by the Mexican army, and there is a real danger of armed robbery in this wild region. Exploring this route presents other options beyond Bonampak and Yaxchilan. From the riverbank settlement of Frontera Corozal, you can get a boat a short distance upstream to Bethel in Guatemala, and from the fast-expanding town of Benemerito you can occasionally take a longer trip on a trading boat upstream to Sayaxche (also in Guatemala), on the Rio de la Pasion. The interior of this remote corner of Chiapas fortunately has some form of protection as the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve .
Your Tip for Usumacinta valley and the Frontier Highway south
Help other backpackers! Write your own guides and backpacking tips to Usumacinta valley and the Frontier Highway south - they will appear instantly on this page - Please only write a tip/guide to Usumacinta valley and the Frontier Highway south - visit the main Usumacinta valley and the Frontier Highway south forum to ask a question!
Please do not post links to your site here (they won't work) - please use the Usumacinta valley and the Frontier Highway south webguide section below! Thanks.
| 
