[Thor Henning]

Originally Posted by Anna

There are some overland trips that use their own vehicles too (GAP uses local transportations). Do a Google search and see what you can find. I see one big truck outside Mom's Hotel sometimes, but can't remember the name of the company.

With the time you have, you will have no problem doing a great round-trip by yourself if you want to. You don't have to do all of La Ruta Maya. You can go from Playa to San Ignacio in one day, spend a day there, then on to Flores, stay the night there, visit Tikal early in the morning, maybe one more day in that area, night bus to Guatemala City, on to Antigua the next day, spend two nights there, Chichicastenango-Atitlan another two days or so, on to San Cristobal with surroundings for a couple of days (Sumidero etc). Here I suggest you check out a Na Bolom tour. I think their pretty pricy, but it's probably something you'd like. They do some 3 and 4 day tours in to the Lacadonian jungle, you get to stay with the very traditional Lacadonian Mayas, see Bonampak, Yaxchilan and more, sound very cool! See if they can drop you off in Palenque or Agua Azul to safe travel time. Then back to Playa. If you have time in there, check out Lago Montebello. Haven't counted the days, but it seems like you can do that in two weeks and then have 3-4 days as buffert days in case you find something on the way you'd like to do.

The more I think of it, the more I would like to take this round trip. But how is the hotel standards in the small places? Do we need to bring sleeping bags? I did this when I was traveling in Peru in 1981 and in some places it was really needed. Any other advises?