We had originally wanted to visit Yaxha and La Blanca together as a full day tour, but as the low season was in full swing it was a struggle to get numbers together for a tour. Plus, it also turned out that the archeologists working on La Blanca weren’t due back until September. So a half day trip to Yaxha it was.
The site itself is located within the cultural triangle national park along with 2 other sites, Naranjo and Nakum. Entry fees to the park include access to all 3 sites, however they are not a stroll apart and you would have to camp inside the park if you wanted to see all of them on your trip.
The national park is located an hour and a half from Flores along a good paved road until you arrive at the park which has an unpaved entrance road.
Although this site was one of the smallest we visited, it still offered impressive views across the park from various temples.
You really have to observe your surroundings as you walk through Yaxha as a lot of the site has been left unexcavated or partially excavated on purpose. Once you start to identify all the hidden structures you get a feel for just how big a site it had once been.
A nice thing about Yaxha is that it has a very laid back feel to it and you are able to climb nearly all the structures, allowing you to walk around without feeling you are held back from immersing yourself.
We were especially lucky during our visit to be sharing the site with only 2 other tourists, leaving us to only come across the odd bored looking guard on our walk.
We decided to visit Yaxha in the afternoon, as the site only requires a few hours to view, but the real bonus is you can sit on temple 216 and watch the sunset over the lagoon.
One thing we did realise during this visit was that for us, we had now seen enough Mayan sites for the time being and that it was time to see more of modern Mayan culture, so we decided to head towards Antigua.