Blogs from San Ignacio, Cayo District, Belize, Central America Caribbean - page 2

The Egyptians built Pyramids, Christians/Muslims built daunting castles and Mayans built Temple/Pyramids… all of them, inevitably to influence and rule respective populations. Over the past week I visited three progressively bigger Mayan ruins. Staring with Cahel Pech, dating from 800 to 400 BC; it’s small but beautifully mossed over. Then Xunanunich bigger and taller built from 700 to 850 AD, impressive and dauntingly grey. Finally, giant Tikal which was occupied and progressively built from 400BC through 800AD – all six of Tikal’s massive temple/pyramids were built in the latter Classical Period – all six are higher than their surrounding jungle forest. Around 800AD Tikal spread over 10 square miles, had a population well over 100,000, a hieroglyphic historical script, big enemies and no horses, steel, nor wheels. Finally when the Spanish arrived they contributed European germs ... read more

We went to see the Mayan ruins at Caracol. It's pretty well off the beaten track, and there were only an handful of other people there. It was a 3 hour drive from San Ignacio, time consuming not because of the distance, but the unpaved road. We stopped on the way at the Rio Frio cave which was impressively large. At Caracol, we explored the site with our guide, who explained the various buildings that have been excavated in the last couple of decades. The site was quite large, and surrounded by jungle, and we stopped to watch some howler monkeys for a while. We climbed up the tallest building, thought to have been home to the Mayan nobility in the heat - it felt like a long way up, and there was a good view ... read more

so, we had 2 and a half days in Cayo (San ignacio). This is a small town fairly close to the Guatemalan border which we planned on using as a hub to explore the west side of Belize. The town is set around the Mopan river and twinned with Santa Elena on the other side. I had a good time there because of the people we met. It is the first time that I had really met other travellers in Belize. Other than this, we have been so isolated and haven't met many other travellers! The town is small and has a large market area. We arrived there to be greeted by some other Medics on their elective from Nottingham, (they may have been signed off a little early like us) but had also just qualified, ... read more

After a surprisingly good sleep, Troy, Melanie, and I walked over to a bakery at the nearby Radisson Hotel for breakfast. Here we had our first taste of Johnny Cakes, which are little english muffin sized biscuits popular around the Caribbean. After breakfast, we met Kirsten and Tony, the 2 Australian sisters who missed last night's meeting. They had spent all day yesterday traveling by public bus from Mexico to Belize. Our private bus was delayed so we weren't able to leave at 10 as scheduled so to kill some time, a few of us decided to walk into town to find a store in order to buy some snacks. We received directions from the hotel staff and ventured into town. Being that it was a Sunday, almost everything was closed. We ended up settling on ... read more