This site includes two of my favorite Maya ruins of Yaxchilan and Bonampak -- two very unique sites among the many Maya ruins I have visited. 

Yaxchilan

You reach the site by a 45 minute boat ride down the Usumacinta River, which is the border between Mexico and Guatemala here, and kind of a fun experience by itself. Once you arrive at Yaxchilan, you enter the site proper through the small Labyrinth building. Moss-covered stones are everywhere, contributing to the jungle atmosphere of these ruins.  The Great Plaza has a large number of structures, ball courts, and stelae.  The stelae still have very visible hieroglyphics on them.  Stele 11 is a particularly noteworthy one. It's considered one of the best examples of sculptural monuments, carved during the reign of King Bird Jaguar IV (752-772 AD), it now rests on the ground in the Great Plaza, but it survived an earlier failed attempt to move it to Mexico City. There are several door lintels that also show fantastic hieroglyphic details. There is even some pigment remaining in spots, but if that gets you excited, wait until you get to Bonampak. There is so much more than the Great Plaza -- there's a huge staircase leading to the Great Acropolis and Structure 33 with its elaborate comb top. And another Small Acropolis even further up, as well as additional buildings and trails you can explore.

 

You'll probably come as part of a group tour (I did). Mine did not include a guide, but you can hire one at the site. My advice: do NOT hire a guide here. If you can read English, Spanish, or Mayan, nearly everything here is very nicely signposted.  Yeah, I'm sure a good guide could add a bit more, but, from what I saw, they are mostly going to slow you down. On these group tours, you only have a set amount of time at the site before the boats take you back. In our larger group (maybe 40 people), only a couple others besides me made it to the Small Acropolis and slightly more remote buildings like that. Nobody who had hired a guide there did.

 

Bonampak

This site really has only one main structure and one extraordinarily tall stele.  But the main Acroplis is marvelous, without parallel as far as I know. The paintings inside the rooms on the pyramid here make Bonampak the Sistine Chapel of the Maya world. There are three rooms halfway up the Acropolis with painted murals covering an area of 1615 square feet, featuring 270 human figures and 30 godlike figures. The colors are still bright and vibrant, many centuries later. Honestly I'm amazed these are still open to the public. I had to go through twice to take it all in.

 

Again, I visited as part of a group tour from Palenque, in 2018.  It was standard practice to transfer to a very old and extremely dusty passenger van, run by the local Lacandon tribe, to transport you the final kilometers to the Bonampak site. I do sympathize with the efforts by the locals so derive some benefit from the local sites, but feel this could be done in a better way.

In summary: two very different, but equally amazing ancient Maya sites. Commonly visited as a combined long day trip from Palenque which includes breakfast and lunch. You could easily arrange an overnight stay with the Lacondons also.

On the return of my trip, another trip's van hit a local man on a bicycle after dark while heading back to Palenque.  Our tour van (the last one of the day going back) came across the ugly scene a few minutes later and our driver was able to rescue the tourists from the other van. Just a cautionary tale if you're thinking of self-driving here. I had a rental car and drove quite a bit around the area during my trip, but never after dark. This trip makes a very long day and you can't beat the price of organized tours.

 

Photos: Top left is Stele 11 from Yaxchilan.  The others are all from Bonampak.  I thought you didn't need to see another photo of the exterior of another Maya temple.