Amazing Travel Adventures

The department that inspired the Guatemalan writer, Virgilio Rodríguez Macal, to write the book The Serpent Bird House, turns it on this tour of our country.

The natural beauty is, without doubt, an important letter of introduction from the vast Peten region. This ecological heritage unparalleled in Central America is second only to the archaeological wealth that characterizes the Petén and has become one of the most interesting for world tourism.

In addition to its archaeological sites, we find here an extensive and varied wildlife, which is presented in all its beauty to those who dare to penetrate its dense forests.

The historical value of Petén occupation means that Mayan culture it was centuries ago, one which left a lasting imprint on the history and current life in Guatemala.

Millennial between history and tradition

Without doubt, Tikal is the most important prehistoric sites listed in Peten, but the list is longer than we can imagine: Yaxhá, Nakún, Nakba, Aguateka, Petexbatún, Piedras Negras and Ceibal, are considered first-order; so we left without including a plethora of places.

The department’s occupancy time practice was continued until the arrival of the Spanish, but not meant that the conquest was early. And is that Hernan Cortes passed through the region in 1502, on their way to Honduras, but after this, there were several attempts to “input” and “conversion” of the Spanish, but all failed.

It was not until 1697, when Martin Urzua and managed Arismendi itza’es the first reduction, specifically in “Noh Peten” in place of the present day island of Flores. Two years later he has consolidated the conquest of the center of the department, was achieved on the Mopan, apparently parallel to this process, that a number of other ethnic groups, residents, referred to by the chroniclers, was involved in a violent process of extinction.

Some pockets of population chol, located on the banks of the Rio La Pasion and Usumacinta, which had remained in the region until the middle of this century, ended up fleeing into Mexico in the Lacandonia, harassed by government policies, especially implemented by Jorge Ubico, who even brought several of them to be exhibited in the fair fields of November, as part of the exotic ideas they had of that town.

During the colony, the island was originally named as Nuestra Senora de los Remedios and San Pablo del Itza was in this place where the fort stood presidio de Arismendi. From this period we can also appreciate colonial towns of San Andres and Dolores.

Activities such as the camps, known as logging, chiclería, xate extraction and black pepper, have a determining influence on the livelihoods practiced by the settlers. Some landlords have important livestock farms, using the traditional training of the savannas, own the center of the department and the rest of the rural population is engaged in agriculture.

A mid-twentieth century, the government of the Republic launched an ambitious project of colonization of the banks of the Passion and Usumacinta River, which resulted in the formation of several cooperatives settled on the banks of these rivers, hence the split formation of other villages like El Chal and other settlements were consolidated as the head of the municipality of Sayaxché.

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