Guatemala treasures Maya ruins and their rich history

While Guatemala's 36-year civil war ended in 1996, the military is a presence along its border with Belize. We were later told that many Guatemalan Maya relocated to Belize to escape becoming victims of "ethnic cleansing." Hernandez's father, along with many others, emigrated from Guatemala to Belize in the early 1900s, at the end of the Caste War, in which the Maya rebelled against the economic and political domination of those of European descent.

As we bounced along, Hernandez braked at regular intervals to roll over the speed bumps signaling the beginning of small towns, each no more than a handful of colorful houses with palm or tin roofs and a horse munching grass in the yard. Women in brightly patterned clothing walked along the road with big urns on their heads, fat pigs took their time moving out of the path of oncoming cars, men swiped at lush vegetation with machetes, and children in uniforms played basketball and soccer at Roman Catholic schools.

As we neared Tikal National Park, we stopped at a roadside arts and crafts plaza and picked up Armando Bishop, who would be our guide to the monuments. He was eager to show us as much of the park's 222 square miles as possible in the few hours we had. People often spend up to three days taking in the history and wildlife habitat of this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

But we were struck by how few tourists there were. We understood Bishop was frustrated that while the achievements of the Maya were comparable in numerous ways to those of the Egyptians - with breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, architecture, and written language - the time, money, and resources of the archeological world have generally focused outside the Americas.