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?

At one point we all turned off our lights and waded in complete darkness

The Crystal Maiden - keep sleeping, young man

Dreamy rock formations

We all made it out!

Love you all,

Matt

Belize - Kings and Queens of the Castle

April 5-7

Hello everyone!

Belize is many things. One thing it's not, however, is tall. Its highest point is a mere 1,124 metres above sea level (that may seem high in the UK, but my last two houses have been 960m and 1100m up). That doesn't mean it lacks tall things, mind…

An iguana at the top of El Castillo in Xunantunich

Big Rock Falls

El Castillo at Xunantunich

From Belize City, Hannah and I headed west with her sister and brother-in-law. We based ourselves slightly above a settlement that calls itself the Twin Towns: Santa Elena and San Ignacio.

I'm in the car. We're on a ferry, you'll see it later.

San Ignacio is very close to the Guatemalan border

Like Belize City, it was initially quiet due to the Easter weekend. On the way, having dodged arguably the country's biggest sporting event, we stopped at St Herman's Cave to hike. It's a fascinating place that needs a torch to truly appreciate. Apparently it was once used by Mayans for rituals; as you'll see in the next blog, it wasn't the only cave used for that purpose...

St Herman's is a large limestone caving system

We can walk in about 80 metres without a guide

Being away from the coast, the scenery was markedly different. Forget ocean breezes and introduce lush, green forests. Humidity and UV were similar, mind: insanely high.

View from the cave entrance

The twin towns were nice enough, fairly unremarkable. They have some potentially interesting spots to visit, like Cahal Pech Archaeological Site and Green Iguana Sanctuary. But we were using this as a base to go further afield. 

Up in the clouds, and very humid

This river flows all the way to the Caribbean Sea

One morning we headed south, “high” into the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve. We’d been told that there were a couple of beauty spots involving water in the area. This is where we learnt that the weather can be a little bit unpredictable - before enjoying the first area, we had to briefly take cover from a sharp downpour under a hut.

Rain!

Hiding under a hut from the shower

Rio On Pools sounds like it’s a linguistic mix of English (Pools) and Spanish (Rio). It’s actually all in English, as the river is called the River On. They are a set of small pools and mini waterfalls that sit within a small section of the tributary. The water looks a lot cleaner without rain, but it was still a nice swim.

The blue sky hadn't existed 10 minutes before!

The slightly muddy waters at Rio On Pools

I didn't get much further than this, the current was quite strong

Within this park is a much larger fall, called Big Rock Falls. To access these, we parked at a hotel called Blancaneaux Lodge. The place is stunning, which explains why a room for two costs over $1000 a night. Randomly, it is owned by Francis Ford Coppola, of Godfather and Apocalypse Now fame.

Apparently Coppola visited Belize in the 1980s 

Horse. Head attached, thankfully. If you've seen
The Godfather, you'll get the reference.

Big Rock Falls isn’t far from here, but recent weather has made the trail quite muddy. The return hike was in the middle of the day, making it particularly draining. 

Little stone slabs were a saviour here

I imagine it's much harder in rainy season

Quite the reward, though. Powerful water gushes from a height of over 40 metres into a plunge pool, before flowing over more granite in the form of mini falls into a larger pool. Definitely worth a swim.

Big Rock Falls

That dark blob is me swimming up to the falls

There was another place we had to swim whilst staying in San Ignacio (more about that next time). One other highlight involved water; however, this was not water we wanted to enter. After all, we had our car with us…

The ferry to get to Xunantunich

The journey takes probably less than a minute

Heading to the Mayan site of Xunantunich (pronounced shoo-nan-too-nitch) involves crossing the Mopan River on a hand-cranked ferry. That man in the picture above is doing all the work. After accidentally cutting to the front of the line, we rolled aboard and across before arriving at the site of the ‘Stone Woman’.

The site is split into 4 zones: A to D

Xunantunich is much bigger than the other Belizean site we visited, that of Altun Ha. Being on the river, it was an important ceremonial and trading centre for other parts of the Mundo Maya and even beyond. At its peak, its population may have exceeded 10,000. The ‘downtown’ area alone measures about one square mile.

In 2016, the largest royal Maya tomb ever found was discovered here 

Various structures have been left in differing conditions

What I found particularly striking about this site was its main structure: El Castillo, or ‘The Castle’. It is enormous. It stands at 130 feet tall - almost 40 metres. We’re used to seeing multi-storey buildings and skyscrapers; imagine arriving here, having not seen anything human-made taller than a tree, and having to crane your neck to look at the top of that! Very intimidating, I’m sure.

Even now, it's the second-tallest structure in Belize!

El Castillo has had some alterations over time; it probably didn’t have bannisters on the side staircases, for example. We learnt that recent renovations have been done to reemphasise one aspect of this imposing stone structure. The intricate carvings on the sides of the castle were restored about 10 years ago, using new technology to make them look exactly as they once were. They include visuals of various gods.

Archaeologists think that the faces wrapped
around the whole Castillo in its original form

The friezes are elaborately carved

You’re allowed to climb to the top of El Castillo. The view is not for those who aren’t a fan of heights, particularly if you look directly down. It is incredible. 

Not one for the acrophobic among you...

You can see Guatemala from the top

Like all other Mayan sites, Xunantunich was abandoned at around 900 CE. Like all other Mayan sites, we are yet to truly understand the reason. Having been rediscovered almost a millennium later, Xunantunich is the oldest continuously excavated Maya site in the country. They are still finding new elements and curating older ones so that it can be seen in its true, original glory.

They have found 26 large structures so far

Xunantunich also had residential areas

I’ve said before about each Mesoamerican ruin I visit being unique. Xunantunich didn’t disappoint, with the need for a ‘ferry crossing’ adding to the aura and fun. Like Big Rock Pools, El Castillo is a high point - literally and metaphorically - in many ways in the beautiful country of Belize.

This is a fryjack: hearty, unhealthy Belizean food

The dog who walked back with us from Big Rock Falls

El Castillo at Xunantunich

Love you all,

Matt