In a southern corner of Mexico bordering on Guatemala, writer Tara Wells discovers a jungle ringing with howler monkeys, bright with macaws and home to enough biodiversity to give the Amazon a run for Attenborough’s attention.
More than 10 million people visit Mexico’s resort-heavy Cancún annually. About 300,000 travelers make it 11 hours further south to see Palenque’s Mayan ruins. By the time we reach the equatorial jungle of Lacandon selva (another four hours southeast), my family of five will double, and sometimes triple, the daily visitor numbers everywhere we go.
This is the Lacandon rainforest—and to get here, you have to head way off the tourist track.
An inverse set of numbers waits for us in the biodiversity hotspot. Despite only covering the smidgiest bit of southern Mexico (0.4 percent), the Lacandon forest—one of just two major remaining forests in the country—contains a quarter of Mexico’s total living species.
This includes nearly half of the country’s butterfly species and 25 percent of its animals, from spider monkeys and tapirs to endangered jaguars. With more than 1,500 tree varieties giving home to a third of the country’s bird species, including the last wild scarlet macaws, this forest is nearing the Amazon in abundance.
