YUCATÁN PENINSULA & BELIZE EXPEDITION
Tour Description

Mid-January to Mid-March 18 (last caravan was in 2004)

65 Day Tour:  Pharr (2 nights), Ciudad Victoria (1), Tampico (1), Costa Esmeralda (2), Veracruz (2), Villahermosa (1), Campeche (3), Uxmal (2), Mérida (3), Piste (3), Paamul (7), Chetemal (2), Corozal (18 with side trips), Palenque (6), Villahermosa (1), Catemaco (5), Veracruz (2), Costa Esmeralda (1), Tampico (1), La Pesca (2), Pharr. [Note, in the various itineraries, although we sometimes visit the same cities, we rarely visit the same birding sites, making each trip a new experience.]   

The lure of Mexico tantalizes many a traveler, but to a birder it holds an even greater fascination. From coastal beaches to mangrove estuaries, shaded coffee plantations, thorn forests and tropical rain forests, Mexico is home or transient passageway to 1070 species of birds. This tour takes you to most of Mexico's best birding sites along the Gulf coast, the Yucatán Peninsula and Northern Chiapas. Capping off this birding adventure is a visit to Belize where the density of tropical birds is simply amazing. Prior years we identified over 400 bird species and most birders added 100-200 to their life lists. In addition, this trip offers the expertise of a birding guide that will lead you throughout the 65-day expedition. Whether you are a budding beginner or a seasoned veteran, this birding trip is bound to be a highlight of your birding experience.

Our tour will take us along the well-traveled route of other caravan trips so that we can take advantage of the established contacts for camping, restaurants and tourist attractions, but we will also deviate from this route to reach special birding locations missed by traditional caravans. We've made every effort to hit all of the best birding sites along the route, without missing any of the popular Mayan ruins. 

Have you had the opportunity to focus your binoculars on a Blue-crowned Motmot or a Squirrel Cuckoo? Have you ever heard a Central American Pygmy-Owl hoot in the darkness or a Collared Forest-Falcon call at sunrise? Would you like to see flocks of Scarlet Macaws wing over the jungle canopy? Or watch hundreds of male Magnificient Frigatebirds entice females with their inflated red throats? How about seeing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Greater Flamingoes feeding in a shallow bay? Have you found the more elusive species like Rufous Piha or Eye-ringed Flatbill or Dot-winged Antwren? These and hundreds of other enticing new birds await your discovery on this Mexico and Belize birding caravan.

The Mayan ruins at Uxmal and Chichén Itzá are home to Aztec Parakeet, Yucatan Jay, Turquoise-browed Motmot and Canivet's Emerald. A day trip to the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula will give us a chance to find Mexican Sheartail, Yucatán Wren and other endemics that only occur in this remote location. We'll have a leisurely 7-night stay at Paamul on the Caribbean and while there we'll have a great variety of fun opportunities ranging from snorkeling, birding Mayan ruins and the botanical garden, playing at the Xcaret and Xel-Ha wonderlands, ferrying to Isla Cozumel for island endemics, or just soaking up the sun at the beach.

Rain forests surrounding Mayan ruins at Palenque provide the backdrop for one of Mexico's most popular birding sites and a great place to see and hear Howler Monkeys. Noteworthy birds include Brown-hooded Parrot, Long-billed and Stripe-throated Hermits, and Chestnut-colored Woodpecker. Even with six nights at Palenque, you'll want to stay longer. But our stay will be long enough to explore the fascinating ruins, bird the densely forested hiking trails for Orange-billed Sparrow and the nearby ranch lands for Double-striped Thick-knee , and the mesmerizing waterfalls at Agua Azul and Misol-Ha. On a boat trip on the Usumacinta River bordering Guatemala - where we've found Collared Plover on the gravel bars - we'll head to the unique Yaxchilán ruins and bird the jungle that encompasses this remote part of Mexico.

For many, the highlight of the trip will be our stay in Belize, an English-speaking country of unsurpassed beauty and a must-stop for serious birders. Amazingly, in this tiny country - about the size of Massachusetts - we found 315 bird species last winter. Birds that will long stay in the memories of last year's birders are: Jabiru, King Vulture, Royal Flycatcher, Slaty-tailed Trogon, Red-legged Honeycreeper and Golden-hooded Tanager. During a specially arranged boat trip through the jungle at night we plan to see Mottled Owls , Yucatan Nightjar and Northern Potoo. The Belize itinerary is designed with several optional overnight side trips that give us opportunity to reach birding sites remote from the RV park.

We've streamlined our itinerary, taking fewer days on the trip south, passing species we can see at home, so that we can spend more time in Belize. Each year we add more great birding sites to our Belize itinerary. One of our most successful stops in prior years has been the Rio Bravo Conservation Area, so we'll include this side-trip again. And we will add a trip to Mountain Pine Ridge, an addition that now gives us a taste of more habitats types in the country. National Parks of Belize - Cockscomb Basin, Blue Hole and Guanacaste - are again on our itinerary. From our resort stay on the coast, we'll boat to the Barrier Reef islands to snorkel and to see the frigatebirds on their nesting island.

Heading north again, our tour takes us along the Gulf coast to the Sierra de Los Tuxtlas, Mexico's northernmost tropical rain forest and a major birding area where we saw 179 species on a prior trip, including Sungrebe, Keel-billed Toucan and Collared Aracari. Lake Catemaco is a great location to visit in springtime as the birds prepare for nesting. Here we watch Montezuma Oropendolas build their fantastic long nests, performing a forward somersault as they croak their strange song. After a stop at the marshes outside Tampico where we will search for Altamira Yellowthroat, we head to La Pesca. Here we'll hear and see the endangered Yellow-headed Parrots in their last stronghold of remnant coastal hills.

Many extras included on our caravans

If you are a non-birding partner, you won't be left out of alternatives. Our tour guide will see to it that our days and nights offer opportunities to shop the villages, dine at good restaurants, swim on sandy beaches and absorb the rich indigenous and Mexican history and culture. Our trek takes us through incredible scenery, fascinating Mayan ruins and beautiful beaches. Because this is a birding caravan, we see a Mexico not often seen by other tourists, but we also hit many of the traditional tourist spots.

We sample regional dishes from all over eastern Mexico, such as Veracruz fish in the city that gave its name to this specialty, Mayan coffee in Mérida, and flaming steak in Palenque. In Piste we enjoy a great sampling of Mayan traditional dishes and in Belize we do the same with the down-home cooking of that country.

At El Tajín ruins we can watch the famous Papantla flyers and buy vanilla from its homegrown source. Near Cancún we snorkel at Xel-Ha and enjoy the entertainment of Xcaret. From Palenque we spend a day in the mountains at the high waterfalls of Misol-Ha and the turquoise cascades at Agua Azul.

And, of course, in the Yucatán peninsula we see the most famous Mayan ruins at Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Cobá, Tulum and Palenque - plus many other well-known archeological sites such as El Tajín, Yaxchilán and Oxtankah.

Even non-birders will enjoy seeing flocks of bright pink flamingoes on the shallow river of Riá Celestún, finding wild Spider Monkeys crawling through the jungle canopy at Jardín Botánico near Paamul, and listening to Black Howlers at Lamanai, followed by a night-time river ride through the jungles of the New River.

This web site is designed by Bert Frenz.
Copyright © 2003-2005 Bert Frenz. All rights reserved.
Revised: July 05, 2007.