De la Venta Museum

This six-hour excursion will take you to a fascinating open-air museum near to Villahermosa, the capital of the State of Tabasco where you will be able to view a unique collection of artefacts from the Olmec culture. You'll be picked up from your hotel at Palenque at around 9am and taken for the short drive to Villahermosa where La Venta Park-Museum is situated. Walk past huge trees and luxuriant tropical vegetation as you admire numerous Olmec sculptures; the Jaguar's Head, the Monkey Looking at the Sky, the Colossal Head, the Human Jaguar, the Great Altar and the Old Man's Head are just some of the exhibits. Many of these artefacts were moved here when their original emplacement at La Venta, an island in the middle of the vast Río Tonolá marshland about 129 kilometres away was endangered by oil drilling. In addition to the famous heads, look out for large stones with finely carved deities and animals including dolphins and monkeys. The museum itself covers an area of 6.8 hectares with a collection of 36 archaeological artefacts including altars, stelae and colossal heads and 33 monoliths dating from 1300-200 BC. The park is also home to over 650 species of flora fauna including mammals, birds and reptiles and flora representative of this tropical region. The park contains a souvenir shop and cafeteria as well as an indoor museum. We will arrive back in the hotel at around 3pm. Lunch is not included.

Meeting/pick-up point: Hotels in Palenque.
Duration: Approx. 6 hours.
Start/opening time: 9am.
Languages: English and Spanish.