Chetumal Points of Interest Travel Tips - Packages/Deals & Travel Agents Near Me

Activities

Museo de la Cultura Maya

This modern museum unlocks the complex world of the Maya through interactive exhibits and genuine artifacts. Push a button, and an illustrated description appears, explaining the medicinal and domestic uses of plants with their Mayan and scientific names; another exhibit describes the social classes of the Maya by their manners of dress. One of the most fascinating exhibits describes the Maya's ideal of personal beauty and the subsequent need to deform craniums, scar the face and body, and induce cross-eyed vision. An enormous screen flashes images taken from an airplane flying over more than a dozen Maya sites from Mexico to Honduras. Another large television shows the architectural variety of Maya pyramids and how they were probably built. Then a walk on a glass floor takes you over representative ruins in the Maya world. In the center of the museum is the three-story, stylized, sacred ceiba tree, which the Maya believed connected the underworld (Xibalba), Earth, and the heavens. If you can arrange it, see the museum before you tour the Río Bec ruins.

Attractions

Sting rays, reef sharks, tropical fish, sea horses and a huge variety of sea-life make their homes in the reefs that are only 150 yards from the shore. You can snorkle or dive these reefs. The Chinchorro banks are also within an hour or so away, boasting over 150 sunken ships in 15 to 30 foot depths.

Bird watching is a favorite past time, even if you aren't a bird watcher. Several different varieties of Toucans make their home in the nearby jungle and occasionally stop by to steal some fruit if you leave it out.

Visit Uyumil Che (nicknamed the Monkey Farm), a place where monkeys and other animals that are either injured or that people have taken as pets are slowly reintroduced into the wild.