Two vast and trunkless legs

The road had one destination and, although fine, would be reduced to a jeep track in a year and be swallowed by the jungle completely in ten without constant maintenance. We had to swerve for spiders, brake for butterflies and trundle behind turkeys. Branches, of course, were closing in on all sides.

The ruins themselves were set round a swept path surrounded by a scrubbier buffer with those uncovered representing only a fraction of the former capital. The highlights were the pyramidal temples whose summits jutted above the tree-line to reveal dense virgin lowland greenery in all directions to the horizon. There were not many more than thirty other visitors and with closing and the rains it was only us and the monkeys.

The motley collection of Maya ruins within striking distance the following day turned out a feast of abandoned plazas, earth monster doorways, false staircased temples and a living undergrowth. Although biting insects annoyed, ant megalopolis highway, scorpion, black monkeys, frogs, butterflies, crickets, kestrel-like birds and woodpecker were among the day's harmless sightings but, sadly, no startled flight of wild toucans or soporific jaguar dozing in the shade of crumbling walls.

We left the jungle through storm and speed bump and disappearing road to Chetumal, the border with Belize and the Caribbean coast.