The Travelling Teacher: Belize - The ATM that keeps on giving

April 6

Hello everyone!

I'm very privileged and lucky to have had many once-in-a-lifetime experiences throughout my life. Many things I do now have, to some degree, already been experienced. But wading and swimming through caves to sit next to a thousand-year-old skeleton? That's new!

Crystal Maiden in the ATM Cave

Entrance to the ATM Cave

It's something that can happen in Belize, done by taking a day trip to the ATM Cave. Nothing to do with dispensing cash, the letters stand for Actun Tunichil Muknal. You can appreciate why it is commonly shortened to ATM.

The drive from San Ignacio took around an hour

The turning from the main road, with standard joke about
getting a massage from the bumpy track included

You can only enter the cave and experience its wonders with a tour company and official guide. It is also relatively expensive, coming in at $145 per person. The reasons for these, as well as the fact that you're looking at stock photos, will become clear as you read.

We went with Maya Walk. Many people went with Maya Walk.

No electronics are allowed into the cave apart from head torches

The cave was discovered in the modern sense in the late 1980s. To be the person who decided to traverse through dense jungle, swim and crawl through narrow caves before clambering up slippery, stunning rock formations…well, you have to be mad, surely.

One of the areas is called The Cathedral

Helmets are mandatory...and needed!

Yet it quickly became evident to archaeologists that the Mayans had done this over a thousand years prior. The train of thought is that the local Maya associated this cave, as with others across the Mayan world or “Mundo Maya”, with being an entrance portal to Xibalba: the underworld.

The Mayans put great importance on water, rain and rivers

Caves such as these were thought to be the terrain of Mayan 'death gods'

Modern research suggests that there was a reasonably sized Mayan settlement in the area. You wouldn't know it; there are no visible temples or sites that have been excavated. The cave itself, however, offers some incredible clues about life from that time, likely to be between 700 and 900 CE.

A human skull found in the ATM Cave

Some material found and still in the cave, such as this pottery,
has been dated back as far as the third century

Getting to see this is an amazing adventure. It involves going quite deep into the cave: about one kilometre. Before you enter, you firstly hike through the steamy jungle (admittedly this is on a path, so easy). Lots of creatures reside and hide in the lush greenery: we saw a black, speckled snake on our way back. You also walk through - that's right, through - three rivers.

Wading across the river on the way to the cave

No idea who these people are, but
looks like they had a wonderful time!

The entrance of the cave is spectacular, with stone soaring high above you and crystalline waters emerging from its mouth. You're already a bit wet: this is where you plunge.

The entrance is over 10 metres tall

You swim through this hole into the cave

There's a little bit of swimming, a little bit of wading, a little bit of waiting (ATM a very popular place, arguably with too many visitors for it to handle). Headlights from your helmet start to illuminate the beautiful rocks, stalagmites and stalactites that have formed over millions of years.

Your shoes are already soaked at this point

Calcification creates the sparkly effect

We moved slowly through the cave, with many groups overtaking us, as our guide Magdaleno offered up his encyclopaedic knowledge of science, geography and history. As well as pointing out “shin-breaker” rocks and guiding us through increasingly small crevices. That's one reason you have to have a guide: you don't want to get lost down here.

In certain areas, there is a 'path', with hidden rocks in the waters on either side

You also need to step carefully in certain spots,
as not all of the cave has been fully excavated

Some of those crevices were a tight squeeze - one involved sliding your neck through a gap so small that a jutting out piece of rock could tickle your jugular. But they led to some huge spaces, the largest of which is called “The Cathedral”. In here you had rock features and columns that looked like they had been designed by an artist like Gaudi.

Very. Narrow. Passage.

The formations have been created over millions of years

After some more clambering, wading and waiting, you head up some stairs (it would be mad to have to climb those rocks) to a new section and remove your shoes. It's less to do with respect - if it was, I think the sodden socks would have to go, too - and more to do with protecting the rock and slightly sandier sections. These, you see, contain artefacts from the Mayan time. Flints, pots…and human remains.

At this section we had to wait quite a long time - it becomes quite congested

There are many ceramics in the inner part of the cave

Let's deal with that gory part, then. You're probably aware that human sacrifice was a thing that the Maya did. They did this to seek favour from the gods. They had many gods, so there were many sacrifices. The bones of 13 men, women, children and infants have been discovered. One theory is that these remains were sacrificed to the rain god Chac.

Almost all were killed by blunt trauma to the head

Imagine being told you were going in there,
probably knowing you wouldn't come out alive...

Some of these bones are skulls. On younger folk, they show the practice of skull modification. Two wooden boards strapped either side of a baby's head create pressure on the soft skull, resulting in an elongated, flattened head. Like an alien.

An adult skull - evidence of infants has been found

It looks a little bit like my passport photo...

One of these heads has a crack in it. They know how this happened: in 2012, a tourist dropped their camera lens and it fell onto the precarious skull. This wasn't the first incident involving cameras, so all electronics inside the cave were banned. That explains another reason you have to have a guide (to keep you from breaking rules or thousand-year-old artefacts or millions-of-years-old rock formations) and why none of these are my snaps.

This is how close you can get - no cordons, just trust that you won't touch or misstep

It's hard to exactly date the skeletons due to their bones becoming calcified

The jewel of the ATM crown is thankfully undamaged. Jewel is a carefully chosen word here, as the entire skeleton of this late teenage boy glistens due to calcification. His position - lying on his back, legs akimbo, arms looking like they're trying to perform a dance move - is startling. He is the Crystal Maiden. It makes more sense as a name when you know that researchers initially thought this was a woman.

Some now refer to him as the 'Crystal Prince'

Two of the vertebrae are crushed, suggesting a violent death

There are so many wow factors. The adventure of the trek is thrilling, laced with a bit of danger. The colourful rock formations, which may have seen dinosaurs in this cave, are jaw-dropping. The Mayan artefacts found deep in the cave are mind-boggling. How did they get so many heavy pots down here? How did they navigate just by flame? How did they persuade people to keep coming down to be killed and never see light again?

Amazing colours and shapes

They had to get these in without flashlights...

The ATM Cave is a museum in place, artefacts exactly where they were found and a hair’s breadth from you. The combination of this with the arduous, multi-layered trek to get there makes this a pretty unique experience. It's probably why I loved it so much. Who doesn't love an ATM that keeps on giving?