I knew this book was for me when I saw that it devoted more pages to beautiful Isla Mujeres than it spent on Cancun itself. When the book does cover Cancun, it doesn't even mention -- not even in the footnotes -- that the resort area has hundreds of luxury hotels with tens of thousands of rooms. But it does spend almost half a page telling you that there is a youth hostel that sleeps over 600 guests at prices as low as $20.

Got the picture?

This is not going to be a book for 97.8 percent of the American tourists who will visit the Yucatan this year. It won't recommend luxury spas. It won't recommend glitzy all-inclusive resorts on the Mayan Riviera. It won't tell you about the nightclubs where the beautiful people go to dance until dawn.

So if it doesn't cover anything that most people think about when they head to this part of the world, then what the heck IS this book about? Glad I asked!


Square Focus On ADVENTURE and YUCATAN

What this book will tell you about is a hundred different places throughout the three states (Quintana Roo, Yucatan, and Campeche) that make up the Yucatan Peninsula. It will tell you about biosphere reserves where jaguars roam the jungles. It will tell you about lost Mayan cities that not only aren't in the big, popular travel guides, but that sometimes aren't even marked on local signs -- they're places that haven't always been restored, let alone commercialized and turned into theme parks. This book will tell you about cheap places to sleep and eat. It will tell you about deserted tropical beaches where you won't see a soul all day along (just parrots, turtles, porpoises and monkeys).

What do you think? Does that sound like the kind of guide book you'd want to read?? Then read on!


Coverage Can't Be Beat!
I'm impressed by the amazing balance of this book. It would have been so easy for the authors to just talk about the oft-trodden coastal sites, with an aside mention of Chichen-Itza, but the authors didn't take the easy way out. They took another path -- the path less taken -- and that has made all the difference.

Organizationally, the book is broken into four broad parts: three of those parts correspond to the three Yucatecan states, and then of course, there's the obligatory introductory matter at the beginning of the book -- but they're worth reading too!

I thought the introductory chapters were extremely well presented with a tight focus on information that is peculiarly relevant to understanding the Yucatan. Too many guidebooks to the various Mexican regions fail, in my opinion, because they devote most of their space to glittering generalities that are best left to the big, encyclopedic country-wide guidebooks. Local color is what separates the big dogs from the chihuahuas, and I think the authors did a great job of keeping their blinders firmly in place and focusing purely on what's important to the Yucatan.

Example: The history of Mexico is a huge topic and no travel guide does it justice, let alone providing even much that's really useful to a tourist. This guide is different. Their look at history starts with Mayan history, not European history, as too many books do. It also focuses more attention on Yucatan events -- like the Caste War -- than on mainland Mexico events. Not so much as a whisper here about the Mexican revolution, silver mining, or Pancho Villa -- that stuff just had nothing to do with the Yucatan.


Maps and Extras...
I like maps, and I like the way the maps are presented in this book. There are enough broad maps, showing the entire peninsula and entire states, to give me the big picture, and also enough detailed, small scale maps to get me oriented to small towns and remote archaelogical sites. I love having diagram plots of important Mayan ruins, so that I'm at least somewhat aware of what needs to be seen in what order. (Advice you can't get from showing up at a site and relying on the two hand-painted signs, one pointing you to the major ruin just 100 yards off, and one pointing to the distant lake, five miles off -- which to tackle first? The map could tell you!)

Page design is open and inviting, without feeling cramped. I especially like the frequent tables of distance (in both miles and kilometers) from major points (often cities that are transportation hubs) to lesser known ruins, parks, or culturally significant landmarks. It's the kind of ground truth data that's very helpful to a wayward wanderer, but that's too often missing from tourist-oriented guides.


Bottom Line
If you really want to see the Yucatan -- all of the Yucatan -- then you'll need a good guidebook that really gets you off the beaten path. In my opinion, the Adventure Guide to the Yucatan does exactly that. This book is not for everyone -- but it's not intended to be. It covers a specific type of travel in a well-defined region with accuracy, depth, and insight. For what it is, I'd have a hard time imagining a book that could do better than this one. Definitely recommended.


By the Way...
Dreaming about a trip to the Yucatan, but don't want to mess with buses or backpacking? Train it!

There's a new tourist train -- dubbed the Maya Express -- that runs between several major cities and archaelogical sites. It's decidedly upscale travel, with everything taken care of for you -- from breakfasts to upscale hotels -- and it provides an easy way for the just slightly adventurous to break off from typical beach resorts and explore the REAL Yucatan. Prices aren't cheap at $600 for a 2-3 day trip and over $1200 for a week, but you get a fair amount of bang for those bucks. The tours start in Merida, and hit Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Palenque, Campeche, and more... Details are on the web at: www.expresomaya.com

ALL ABOARD!!!



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Details:
"Adventure Guide to the Yucatan, including Cancun & Cozumel", by Bruce and June Conord, Hunter Publishing Inc., Edison NJ (www.hunterpublishing.com), copyright 1998, ISBN: 1-55650-792-5, $15.95 (US), $23.95 (CAN)


Recommended: Yes