Teena Clipston

A Journey of Courage, Curiosity, and Discovery in the Petén Jungle.

Under a dark Guatemalan sky, Teena Clipston lay awake in a lone tent at the edge of camp, listening to the hush between howler monkeys and her own heartbeat. Spiders traced the rainfly. Somewhere out there, maybe a jaguar padded past like a shadow with teeth. Fear pressed in—then curiosity pressed harder.

Teena Clipston

Teena hadn’t reached the Holmul Archaeological Site by accident. She was there to interview Dr. Francisco Estrada-Belli, a renowned archaeologist whose discoveries had reshaped what the world knows about the ancient Maya. She had long been fascinated by ancient history and the mysteries it holds. Explorers, ancient texts, Hopi prophecies, Maya cosmology—if there was a thread that tied humanity to something older and truer, she meant to follow it, even if it led her beneath a canopy that swallowed the light.

By day, the Petén jungle tested every step. Holmul wasn’t a tourist site but a living dig—mud roads, makeshift ladders, crumbling tunnels, and whispered warnings about vipers in the dark. There, Estrada-Belli, famed for uncovering a massive painted frieze in 2013, was closing in on another breakthrough—evidence that a royal tomb might soon be found.

She ventured deep into the ruins herself—through narrow, crumbling tunnels where the air turned cool and damp, and bats brushed past her face like whispers from another world. Snakes could have been hiding in the shadows, and one wrong touch might have brought the ancient stones tumbling down. Yet curiosity always won over fear. Among the most unforgettable moments of her journey was standing before the legendary Holmul frieze, its painted figures still pulsing with colour and power after centuries in darkness. Around camp, rumours swirled—National Geographic was there to film what might become a historic find. Was it true? Had the team finally come close to uncovering the treasures and tomb of a Maya king?

Why She Went—and What She Brought Back

Teena’s quest didn’t begin in the rainforest—it began with a deeper hunger: Where do we come from? What have we forgotten? The histories she’d been taught felt incomplete, leaving too many silences between the lines. So she searched for truth in every direction—through the words of explorers and skeptics, archaeologists and storytellers—and then, she went to see for herself. She crawled through ATM Cave in Belize, attended Hopi ceremonies in Arizona, and wandered the great Maya cities of Mexico and Guatemala, following the echoes of civilizations that once shaped the world.

Holmul felt like the culmination of it all—a place where story meets evidence, where myth and stone seem to argue and agree. Standing there, she felt the connection she had been seeking, the thread that ties us to those who came before. “The stories of the past are there, waiting for us to discover them,” she writes. “And what a beautiful way to uncover them—through adventure, mystery, and the challenges that awaken our spirit.”

The Publisher Behind the Pages

As founder of Clipston Publishing, Teena helps everyday people become authors so their stories and wisdom live on. The same curiosity that pulls her into jungles fuels her publishing work: guiding voices, shaping narrative, and championing books that inspire readers to see the world differently.

Her own story, “Adventures in Archaeology: Petén Jungle, Guatemala,” appears in Wanderlust Chronicles: Transformative Travel Tales—a collection of true journeys by women who said yes to courage, curiosity, and change. Teena’s contribution isn’t just travel writing; it’s a manifesto for wonder. It asks what happens when we test our edges—and what answers arrive when we do.

“I wasn’t watching this unfold in a documentary or reading it in a book—I was living it.”

Read Teena’s Story

Dive into “Adventures in Archaeology: Petén Jungle, Guatemala” in Wanderlust Chronicles: Transformative Travel Tales. Meet the authors, feel the stakes, and travel to the places where history breathes. Buy it here on Amazon.

Note: You can also see the royal-burial discovery at Holmul featured in the National Geographic documentary Secrets of the Sun God: Treasures of the Maya.