Yaxchilan was a powerful Mayan city, built on the Usumacinta River. It was a long time rival of Piedras Negras, an aggressive Mayan city further down river. Yaxchilan also battled against Tikal, and at least once it attacked Palenque.

Yaxchilan is most famous for its carved lintels - stone blocks set into the top of the doorframe. You have to crouch down low and look up at the artwork to get a good view, I found the best way to see the lintels was to lie on my back in the doorways. Yaxchilan was a large city, with numerous temples and stela (monuments). Most of the construction seems to have occurred during the Classical era under the rule of Bird Jaguar IV and his son. Like all the other Mayan sites we visited on this trip, Yaxchilan's political structure fell apart during the great Mayan Collapse and by 850 A.D. it was abandoned.

Yaxchilan is not easy to reach. We rode a launch for an hour down the Usumacinta River to get to the site. Because of its remoteness, Yaxchilan is not very crowded. But the ruins are extensive enough that we spent most of the day looking at the various buildings and lintels. Like all the other sites on this trip, I was glad we had a guide to explain what we were looking and give us the history of the Mayan ruins. All of the guides we had on this trip had an amazing depth of knowledge on the Maya, as well as history and all the flora and fauna that we saw.

After we took the boat launches back up the river to return to our hotel, we saw troop of Howler monkeys in these trees right by the dock. Pretty cool.