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Published: March 4th 2011
El Remate
Jetty by the lake.This past week has seen me cross three countries, the contrast of people and landscapes I've encountered in this short time have been fascinating. I started in Tikal, an archetypal and exemplary Mayan ruin in norther Guatemala, next I headed to the Caribbean coast of Belize & finally, at the northern most point of my journey, to the Yucatán peninsular of Mexico.
Tikal
My last stop in Guatemala was to the small village of El Remate nestled on the lake-shore of Lago de Petén Itzá in the northern region of Petén. I stayed in a small hotel with lake views and a jetty, it was very nice cooling down in the freshwater lake once the midday sun had become too much. Lovely as this area was my main reason for spending time here was its proximity to Tikal, the most famous Mayan ruins in the Latin American world.
Tikal is a gargantuan city containing over 4000 structures within a 16sq km site & was once home to an estimated 200,000 people, from the mysterious fall of the Mayan empire in 900AD through to the mid 1800's the site remained undiscovered until an expedition was mounted in 1848 to
Tikal - Canopy View
View back over the Grand Plaza. establish it's existence and extents, another 100 years would pass before archeological digs started to reclaim the ruins from the encompassing jungle. This work continues today but there is an ongoing battle with a forest so fertile that it could reclaim the entire site within 100 years. It's not known why the Mayan empire collapsed, overpopulation and deforestation have both been cited as possible reasons, either way Tikal was once free off trees and must have been quite a sight.
The ruins of the city are still breathtaking, the center is a series of 9 pairs of pyramidal temples planned out to align with the solar cycle and particularly the solstices. Not all of these temples have been excavated but the ones that have are spectacular, veering up from the jungle floor in stepped pyramids with one side dominated by precariously steep flights of stairs they dominate the surroundings. Tikal is located in the middle a jungle reserve & while exploring the ruins one sees a huge array of life such as spider monkeys and baboons swinging through the trees, wild raccoons roaming in large troops, tarantulas 10cm across clinging to the trees and an incredible variety of bird
Tikal - Temple IV
These vast flights of stairs were very imposing, especially on the climb up. life including raptors, parrots, three type of flying banana (toucans) and woodpeckers. I must have spent an equal measure of time trying to capture the wildlife as I did the ruins. The monkeys were particularly hard to photograph, amusingly one young girl with a very expensive Canon SLR saw an stationary spider monkey in the branches of a tree up ahead, she darted forward and started snapping away, unfortunately the cheeky monkey (sorry) had only stopped to empty his bowels and the poor woman got covered, camera and all.
Over the course of the day I climbed all the major pyramids, the largest, temple IV rises 64m above the forest floor and through the canopy of trees affording panoramic views across the encompassing forest and to the other temples poking their heads above the canopy. It was quite magical being perched atop a Mayan pyramid in the jungle listening to the cacophony of morning birdsong all around.
Caye Caulker
Belize is only a short bus ride but a world apart from Guatemala, colonized by the British (unofficially) as a logging base in the 1800's it's retains a language, culture, character and ethnic mix unique to Central America.
Tikal
Mask 3m high off the Gran Plaza My first call was Caye Caulker, a sandbar island 45 minutes by boat off the Belizian coast; four miles long and in places as little as 200 meters wide this picturesque Caribbean location has all one would expect, clear blue tropical waters, palm fringed shoreline and a predominantly black population with a Jamaican lilt to their English. I spent the first ten minutes on the island with a local chap who was repeatedly telling me "you are my brother from another mother, I am the Coco-Loco-Man" and trying to sell me rum filled coconuts, quite an introduction. The island is quite flat and everyone gets about on big 'beach cruiser' bikes, very cool, may be not as practical in NE England... Apart from the Caribbean sun the major draw of the islands is the proximity of the Belizian Barrier Reef, the second longest in the world, the reef extends the length of the country and beyond, north into Mexico & south into Honduras.
I only had a few days here and apart from putting in some serious hammock time I visited the Hol Chan Marine Reserve for a fantastic days snorkeling on the reef; green & loggerhead turtles,
Caye Caulker
View along the beach front outside my hostel. sting rays, eagle rays, hundreds of technicolored fish, beautiful coral formations, it had it all. The best part of the trip was "Shark and Ray Alley" where the guide chummed the water to draw in some sharks; within minutes the water around the boat was churning with sting rays and more than 20 nurse sharks; once near the boat a few of us dropped over the side to get a better look. As the name suggests nurse sharks are not very fearsome , they are nocturnal and tend to just chill out on the reef during the day but at 3-4m long they are still impressive fish. As soon as we entered the water the sharks started to move off and I had a fun 20min following the shiver of sharks around the reef, occasionally diving down to take their photo, they swam in formation which was very pleasing to watch (see video).
Local fishermen catch huge number of large conchs around the island and the sites we visited were strewn with their discarded shells, such was their number they were used as ash trays, paperweights and even wave breaks on the islands' beaches, extraordinary.
One downside of
Hol Chan reserve
What you looking at Belize is the shear number of tourists drawn by an anglophone country, especially older Americans, this drives up the prices to almost European levels, not good on a backpackers budget. Whist on the island I heard from a Dutch couple about some cave diving in the Yucatán peninsular of Mexico that they had just visited; it sounded to good to miss so on the spur of the moment I headed north into Mexico and the beach side town of Tulum.
Diving the Cenotes of the Yucatán
I know, more caves, but these ones are really really special. A cenote literally means in Mayan a 'sacred well with open water' & this region of Mexico near the Riviera Maya provides some of the most spectacular cenotes for cave and cavern diving in the world.
My first dive was to a sinkhole called Angelita or "Little Angel", the sinkhole is accessed by a short walk through the forest (in full scuba gear) then a 3m jump into the crystal clear fresh water, it was quite odd wandering through a jungle in a wetsuit, anyway... there was not much animal life nor any corals but thirty meters down their was
a layer of hydrogen sulfate which formed what looked like a layer of white cloud or thick fog, poking through this witches brew were the skeletons of dead trees, together with suspended leaves in the water the complete scene had an otherworldly appearance. We dropped through the "cloud" to the dark bottom below where all the forest detritus was being slowly decomposed by the slightly acidic water. On the way back to the surface the sinkhole framed and silhouetted the overhanging trees above beautifully, quite a spectacular dive.
My remaining two dives were different again, for these we navigated by torchlight deep into the flooded Sac Aktun cave systems. These caves were once underground rivers through the limestone strata and over millennia developed the spectacular stalactites and stalagmites which typify the whole region, however rising sea levels caused this whole system to flood leaving the limestone features preserved in time. Both dives were incredible but the third, to Calavera Cenote, had another unusual feature. At 15m down the salt and freshwater met forming a halocline, this is the interface between the two bodies of water, it looks like an oily film suspended in the cave. Passing through the halocline
Shark & Ray Alley
Nurse sharks swimming in formation. was stranger still as the sea water below was several degrees warmer so it was like swimming into a warm bath.
Chatting with the guide during the day he mentioned that there was one more cave he thought I should visit, Dream Gate. The access to this cenote was a mission in its self, we had to drive for 15 minutes through the jungle in a big 4x4 then lower all our scuba gear down the entrance sink hole by a system of pullys. This cave is only usually dived by the local divemasters and they rarely take anyone below instructor level through it for two reasons, firstly it's untouched, every surface above and below is covered with slender fragile formations leaving only a narrow gap though which to swim, any loss of buoyancy control would permanently damage the cave. Secondly it pushes the rules of unqualified cave diving as you swim well beyond the 60m limit from where a cavern officially becomes a cave. I felt really privileged to be invited to complete two dives here, it was like entering an alien world, swimming between columns of rock and under reflected cites of stalactites it was a unforgettable
Shark & Ray Alley
Spotted eagle ray. experience. At one point we all covered our lights & just floated appreciating the silhouette of the formations against the distant blue glow of the cave mouth, it was so beautiful that by an unspoken consensus we didn't move on for some time.
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Mazza
non-member comment
I am really enjoying this trip! Thanks for sharing it with us all.