On to Belize: San Ignacio and Caving!

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Time to say goodbye (or rather: see you - I'm sure I'll be back!) to Guatemala - on we went over the border to Belize. No chaotic border-chrossings this time, just a van-ride, a couple of stamps and an exit-fee and we found ourselves in Belize, a very nice and small english-speaking country with a decidedly Caribbean, laid-back feel about it.
Our first stop was in San Ignacio, a small, not too spectacular town just over the Guatemalian border. We stayed in a couple of wooden shacks just outside of town, in the middle of nature. That meant lots of hummingbirds (they are SO great!), geckos and iguanas - and lots of mosquitos of course, but by now we're used to those. 😉

Since our bus-journey wasn't too long that day we had almost all day left to explore the town (nothing much to explore, there, although it was nice to speak english to everyone and the locals are very friendly) as well as an iguana-reserve at the nearby river. "Betta no Litta", the signs there said - aah, I love the Belizean dialect! Anyway, we saw a couple of Iguanas as well there. A big one that looked almost like a dragon (or a dinosaur!) especially caught my attention - beautiful creatures, those! By the way - Iguanas move a lot faster than you'd think and you better don't make the mistake of pissing them off - the locals in San Ignacio had a lot of entertaining stories about bitten tourists 😉

The food in Belize - "rice an' beans" - is nice, by the way, as it has been on almost the entire trip - we experienced that on the group-dinner that night, another nice evening full of laughs, a juke-box and an absolutely adooooorable little puppy running around.

Next day it was time for one of my favourite activities (topped perhaps only by Tikal) of the trip:

Caving!

We went to do the ATM-Cave (I forgot already what it stands for, I'll look it up another time), which is an hour by van plus another hour hiking next to a lovely river, through the jungle, away from San Ignacio.
No words can describe the wonders of that cave - lets just say I had a marvellous time hiking, stumbling, swimming, climbing and crawling through the darkness of the cave, with a helmet and a headlight on my head and shoes on my feet. All that goes on for about an hour (although its just 500 metres!), to then finally climb up a 3 meter high (and slippery!) rock, jump over the precipice, strip off the shoes (but not the socks), because of the delicate surroundings and squeeze oneself through a narrow opening. This leads to the awesome and very humbling Mayan Sanctuary, where they practised their rites and human sacrifices several hundreds of years ago. The cave hasn't been modified at all, so anyone visiting it finds it almost in the exact way as the original explorers did - with several smashed pots (and a couple of whole ones), great crystal rock-formations, several skeletons (from the human sacrifices) and... well, I can't very well describe it, so yet again I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Let's just say I had an awesome time and would LOVE to do that more often!!

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Photos

Betta no Litta!
At the Iguana-reserve.
No pictures of the animals, though - I got better Iguana-pictures from Tulum, they'll follow, I promise. ;)

Hiking through the river
On our way to the ATM-Cave

The cave-entrance
Yeah, we had to swim in there! ;)

Osama Bin Tiago?!
He'll hate me for this. He loves his beard, though, it's his best friend. ;)

Group photo, shortly before entering the sanctuary
f.l.t.r.: Debbie, Helen, me, Hanna, Pia, Bernie, Tiago.

Mayan Pot... er, important historical artifact, I mean, sorry!
With a monkey on there. Some people think it's a monkey, anyway. I'm not so sure. ;)

More pots
...er, artifacts with immeasurable value... ;)

Rock Formations III
Couldn't get enough of those sights.
By the way, I told you that there's no light whatsoever in those caves, right? Only our headlights and camera-flashes... It made them seem even more impressive.

Rock Formations IV
couldn't get enough of those!

Human Remains
Or, in other words: the skeleton of a girl who got sacrificed by the Mayans and likely died by a fall or a blow to the head.
All human sacrifices were thoroughly planned, by the way - not everyone could get sacrificed, it was a big honour and most were born and raised in the knowledge of being a gift to the gods.

Group shot II
In front of a beautiful formation. Not everyone joined us that day; Mori and Wayne decided to stay in San Ignacio.
From left to right: me, Debbie (kneeling), Hanna, Pia (kneeling), Helen, Bernhard and Tiago.

Comments

[zsteve]

Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM)
I visited the same cave last month - it was a great trip and you are right, it is awesome.