Yaxhá Tour

This tour begins in Flores, where you'll be picked up and driven to Yaxhá. Yaxhá, which sits between two lakes, gained widespread fame in 2005 when Survivor Guatemala was filmed here. Even so, the site doesn't see too many visitors due to its relative isolation.

Yaxhá is the third largest Mayan site in Guatemala—only Tikal and El Mirador are bigger. It's thought that the city grew to prominence during the Classic Period and was defeated by the neighboring city-state of Naranjo in 799.

The ruins of Yaxhá include nine plazas and around 500 structures, including temples, ball courts, and palaces. You can climb to the top of one of the temples and get incredible views of the nearby forest and lagoons (this was the temple that was prominently featured in Survivor Guatemala).

You can also visit the Maler Group complex, which features a pair of temples facing each other over a grassy lawn (a similar setup to Tikal). There are also several stelae and a large altar here.

The Maya Biosphere Reserve is the largest protected tropical forest in North America. Spreading across 4.3 million acres (1.7 million hectares) in Guatemala’s Petén department, this reserve protects huge expanses of forests and the Mayan ruins that lie within them.

The Yaxhá-Nakum-Naranjo Natural Monument includes the Mayan sites of Yaxhá, Nakum, Topoxté, and El Naranjo. The largest site is Yaxhá, which sits between two lovely lakes. Yaxhá gained widespread fame in 2005 when Survivor Guatemala was filmed here.