Tikal Mayan Ruins Tour from Belize City

About this tour

Tikal Mayan Ruins Tour from Belize City

Your tour to the ancient Mayan City of Tikal starts with pickup at your accommodation in Belize City. (This tour is not possible for guests on Ambergris Caye unless they plan to overnight in Belize City or spend a night near TIKAL and return on day 2 Belize)

We head 85 Mile west to the border with Guatemala, in route your guide will give you a history of Belize and the countries development through independence to what is modern day Belize.

At the border your guide will walk you though customs and immigration on both sides. Here you will meet your licensed Guatemala guide and transfer into our Guatemalan vehicle. The ride to Tikal is a little over an hour from the border.

Tikal Peten Guatemala is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in the rain-forest Guatemala, a Chiclero (gum-harvester), reported the ruins to La Gaceta, a Guatemalan newspaper, which named the site Tikal. After the Berlin Academy of Sciences’ magazine republished the report in 1853, archeologists and treasure hunters began visiting the forest.

Today, tourism to the site may help protect the rainforest. It is one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centers of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located in the archaeological region of the Petén Basin in what is now northern Guatemala. Situated in the department of El Petén, the site is part of Guatemala’s Tikal National Park and in 1979 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Tikal was the capital of a conquest state that became one of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient Maya. Though monumental architecture at the site dates back as far as the 4th century BC, Tikal reached its apogee during the Classic Period, c. 200 to 900 AD. During this time, the city dominated much of the Maya region politically, economically, and militarily, while interacting with areas throughout Mesoamerica such as the great metropolis of Teotihuacan in the distant Valley of Mexico.

There is evidence that Tikal was conquered by Teotihuacan in the 4th century AD.  Following the end of the Late Classic Period, no new major monuments were built at Tikal and there is evidence that elite palaces were burned. These events were coupled with a gradual population decline, culminating with the site’s abandonment by the end of the 10th century.

Tikal a UNESCO World Heritage Site!