Day 1 – Arrive Guatemala City

Arrive into Guatemala City’s La Aurora International Airport, where after clearing customs and immigrations, you will be met and transferred to the colonial city of Antigua. Afternoon is at leisure.

Note: Antigua is an optional pre-trip extension to our small group travel. Experiences will be privately guided, but Lyndsay will not be with the group formally until Guatemala City. If you have not travelled to Guatemala previously, the pre-trip extension is highly recommended.

• Meals: -,-,-
• Accommodation El Convento Boutique Hotel, Jr. Suite
  

El Convento Boutique Hotel

In the heart of colonial Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and just across an enchanting cobblestone street from Las Capuchinas, lies El Convento Boutique Hotel. The stunning suites are wonderfully evocative of an earlier time, while still offering the most contemporary of comforts. All 26 suites are named after noteworthy people and places in Antigua and the surrounding area. Most surround a central courtyard, punctuated by a century-old Tempixque tree. While each suite is unique, all feature warm, soothing décor, bespoke furnishings, and hand-crafted local art pieces. Some suites include fireplaces, tranquil private gardens, or terraces with Jacuzzis; sleek bathrooms offer rain showers and are stocked with premium L’Occitane bath products. Free Wi-Fi access and 42-inch flat-screen TVs with cable allow you to stay as connected as you wish. El Convento Restaurant serves gourmet international cuisine with an regional touch in a sophisticated setting under its magnificent vaulted ceiling.  El Convento Restaurant is a great dining choice for hotel guests, visitors, and residents. Accent your meal with a glass of wine from the well-stocked cellar, a variety of tea and infusions, or the hotel’s own award-winning coffee.

Day 2 – Optional Antigua Pre-trip

After a delicious breakfast at the hotel, meet your local guide to explore Antigua on foot this morning on a private tour. The town is among the world’s best-preserved colonial cities and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a magical and captivating town that feels as if time stood still 300 years ago. From its colonial architecture and its crumbling ruins, to wide plazas with fountains and volcano views, exploring this fairy-tale destination is always a highlight of a trip to Guatemala.

Your local guide will unlock the secrets and hidden gems of the former colonial capital of the Spanish Empire. Your walking tour will take in the main highlights of this ancient city, from the hustle and bustle of the atmospheric Central Park to the secret passageways of the many crumbling colonial convents and churches. After your morning tour, the afternoon is yours free to explore the craft markets to search for antique textiles and unique traditional art pieces, grab a coffee and enjoy people watching in one of the many plazas or visit the chocolate museum. Your hotel provides a wonderful walking map of Antigua.

Antigua is famous for its wide variety of restaurants – Spanish, French, Italian, Guatemalan. Reservations are recommended at most restaurants and Amani Travel can make suggestions and reservations based on your preferences. Walking Antigua in daylight is easy and quite safe, but please don’t carry valuables with you. After sunset, please ask your hotel or restaurant to arrange a tuk-tuk to take you home.

• Meals: Breakfast
• Accommodation at El Convento Boutique Hotel, Jr. Suite

 Day 3 – Antigua / Guatemala City

After an early breakfast at the hotel, meet your guide and transfer to the nearby town of San Miguel Escobar for a community-run coffee tour. You’ll experience a day in the life of a small-scale “cooperative” coffee farmer. After a short hike to see the coffee fields, you will be invited into the farmer’s house to learn about and utilize the machinery used to process coffee. You will roast coffee in the traditional way over a fire and share a cup of coffee with the farmer and his family. After the tour, transfer to Guatemala City to check in to our hotel and rest before our official welcome dinner with the entire group together.

• Meals: Breakfast, dinner
• Accommodation at Guatemala City Hotel (hotel to be confirmed)

Day 4 – Fly to Petén: Gateway to Mundo Maya  

Rise early for our scheduled 50-minute flight through the ‘Avenue of Volcanoes’ to the Petén Department. Bring a snack with you, it’s an early flight and we will enjoy brunch in town after we land. We have a bit of flexibility today, as we enter the ‘Petenero’ mind frame of laid-back…we may stroll the streets of the colorful island town of Flores popping into shops, grabbing a coffee or just admiring the brightly-painted buildings. When we are ready, we’ll board a private lancha (boat) for the journey across the lake. Lago Petén Itza is the second largest lake in the country and is said to be home to the oldest of the ancient Maya in Guatemala, the Itzá. The journey is picturesque; unexcavated Maya sites dot the lakeshore and kingfishers and egrets fish in the emerald waters. Arrive at Bolontiku with the afternoon to relax and explore the beautiful grounds. Settle in to your casita and enjoy!

• Meals: Brunch
• Accommodation at Bolontiku 

Bolontiku
Bolontiku Boutique Hotel sits on the shores of Lago Petén Itza, almost directly opposite Flores, the island town. The expansive gardens are host to endemic and local plant species, bird life and a myriad of butterflies, geckos and small creatures. The hotel’s heart is the pool and dining area at the edge of the lake. Due to the steep hillside, a golf cart is available to take guests to and from their suites as needed. Each suite is designed in homage to a Maya temple, with an eco-friendly grass roof. Each of the 15 suites features a private deck, A/C, safe deposit box, luxury bath amenities, bottled water and high quality linens.
      

Day 5– Full day Tikal Tour  

Rise early, it’s easy when you’re enjoying a hot cup of coffee on your verandah listening to the tropical birdsong. After a hearty breakfast, we’ll depart for a full-day exploration of Tikal. It was one of the most grand and important cities in the Maya Biosphere. Today, this ancient metropolis sits in ruins - its massive temples, palaces and ceremonial complexes devoured by the jungle. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979, Tikal is Guatemala’s most famous cultural and natural preserve. With Francisco at the helm, we’ll experience this network of ruins and temples like few tourists ever do…through the eyes of a renowned archaeologist. He’ll show us the layout of the temples, explain the architecture, theories on the history and why the Maya disappeared. If we are lucky, we will spot spider and howler monkeys, parrots, toucans, trogons and possibly the majestic macaws.

After lunch at the site, we’ll continue at our leisure. In the morning and late afternoon, we have good chances of spotting the small ground mammals that call these forests home – coati mundi and agouti paca. Jaguars lurk but are rarely spotted due to their elusive nature and exceptional camouflage. It will be a full day in the elements, be prepared with comfortable shoes with ankle support for climbing the temples, a wide brimmed hat, plenty of drinking water, sunscreen and bug repellent. We’ll return to Bolontiku in time to enjoy sundowners by the lake before dinner and a restful night.

• Meals: Breakfast, lunch at Tikal
• Accommodation at Bolontiku  

Day 6 – Afternoon Yaxha 

The morning is yours at leisure to enjoy the lake, bird watch from the deck, catch up on your journal and enjoy your surroundings. Later, we’ll head to Yaxha, an under-visited site toward Belize. Discovered in 1904, Yaxha (meaning ‘blue-green water’) was the third largest city in the region and reached its peak of power in the Early Classic Period (AD 250-600). Yaxha is a wild and wonderful place to spot birds and wildlife. The lake is home to an endemic population of Moretti crocodile. The city boasts more than 500 ruined structures, some of which are excavated, and others still hidden by the jungle. Over 40 stelae have been discovered here on the 3 square-kilometer site. After watching sunset from the hilltop temples, we’ll return to Bolontiku.

• Meals: Breakfast
• Accommodation at Bolontiku  

Day 8 – Holmul Archaeological Site

Rise early for a very, very special day. After breakfast, we’ll depart from the Bolontiku helipad for our scenic helicopter flight to the remote archaeological site of Holmul, deep in the jungle northeast of Tikal. Close to the border of Belize, it was one of the longest-populated cities of the Maya empire and was abandoned 1,100 years after its initial establishment. The architecture found at Holmul was influenced by Mexico’s Teotihuacan and neighboring Tikal. In 2013, the Guatemalan archaeologist, Francisco Estada Belli, and his team discovered a 600-year-old pyramid richly decorated with images of gods and rulers. The discovery changed the way historians and archaeologists viewed the Maya historical records. We’ll delve deeply into this history, exploration and experience a true sense of discovery as we spend the day touring Holmul with Francisco. We’ll enjoy a picnic lunch at Holmul. After the tour, we’ll fly back to the hotel for our last dinner in Petén.

• Meals: Breakfast, picnic lunch
• Accommodation at Bolontiku  

Day 9 – Departure  

Savour your final cup of coffee with that amazing lake view and either continue by road to Belize if you want to extend or fly back to Guatemala City to connect with your international departure (road transfer / flight not included in trip cost; pending plans).

• Meals: Breakfast

END OF SERVICES 

*Note: Pricing subject to final adjustments on itinerary although we do not anticipate significant variations. Francisco Estrada-Belli is confirmed as our guide, however, due to emergencies and events beyond our control we cannot guarantee his guiding.

*Price for payment by check or domestic bank transfer, please add 3.5% for payment by Visa, MasterCard or American Express. Single Room Supplement on request.

The Tour Price includes:

• Meals and drinks as indicated in itinerary
• All private vehicle transfers
• Excursions as per the itinerary, private vehicles + specialist guides
• Entrance fees and private tour in Antigua & Guatemala City
• Entrance fees at Yaxha, Tikal and Holmul
• Airport transfers as indicated
• Round-trip road transfers to/from Yaxha and Tikal
• Round-trip helicopter transfers to Holmul
• Internal Flight GUA-FRS
• Current Government taxes and levies

The Tour Price excludes: 

• International Airfares
• International and domestic departure tax (often included in your international airfare)
• Return or onward internal flight from FRS (Flores) pending departures (estimated at $145)
• Laundry services
• All alcoholic & Non-alcoholic drinks unless where noted, drinking water in vehicles is included
• Meals and excursions not indicated in the itinerary above
• Travel and health insurance
• Any optional tours or excursions not mentioned in the itinerary above
• Gratuities (tips) to guides, hotel staff/porters – AMANI WILL PROVIDE TIPPING GUIDELINES
• Any other items of a personal nature, such as drinks, laundry, telephone and postage.

Please review Amani Travel’s complete Terms & Conditions on our website. For information on travel insurance please visit our website.

Specialist Guide Biography: Francisco Estrada-Belli

Francisco Estrada-Belli received a Ph.D. in archaeology from Boston University in 1998. He specializes in Maya archaeology, Remote sensing and geographic information systems. He currently teaches at Tulane University in New Orleans.  He is the author of “The First Maya Civilization. Ritual and Power before the Classic Period” (Routledge, 2011) the first book on the origins of Maya civilization since 1977. He directs a multi-disciplinary archaeological project in the Holmul region of Peten, Guatemala.  He has held research affiliations with Boston University, Universidad San Carlos de Guatemala, and the American Museum of Natural History, is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a National Geographic Explorer. In 2010 he co-founded the Maya Archaeological Initiative, a US non-profit organization that promotes research and youth education on Maya heritage as well as cultural site preservation.

Tour Leader Biography: Lyndsay L. Harshman

After more than a decade of exploring Guatemala, I’ve developed my list of ‘wow’ moments: taking a quiet minute to reflect in the jungle and actually observe Tikal through the eyes of an archaeologist (see above!), trying to grasp a fraction of his understanding of the importance and mystery of that massive kingdom; drinking a beer in a 1920s-era bar in Guatemala City’s historic zone that sees few tourists, mariachis playing between the tables just like they did almost a hundred years ago; sitting around a Guatemalan family’s dinner table in the Maya highlands while listening to stories of survival during the war years and eventually growing their dairy farm and guesthouse. It’s hard to stop there. Guatemala was initially a wintertime escape for me, but it became a second home and a place I am passionate to share with my travelers. It’s a country that operates like a village and as an outsider welcomed in, I appreciate every moment I have there. Luckily for my clients, they have access through me, to many of these amazing connections I have developed in the last decade of traveling to Guatemala. Private museum collection access, chef-led market tours and cooking classes, hands-on traditional weaving courses, the top private guides, gourmet (and local) restaurant suggestions that I love, hidden sunset spots, the best vehicle fleet in the country, the list goes on...Welcome to my Guatemala!