Belize tour 5/5 - St Ignacio

After a week at a reef atoll, it is time to move back to mainland for the last part of the tour. St Ignacio is inland in the west surrounded by mountains, it is a stopover spot to enjoy birdwatching, river sport and Mayan ruins.

red custard apple

soursop & custard apple

St Ignacio turns out to be a pleasant and relaxing small town, still basic simple houses, but with a farmer’s market every day selling lovely fruits, and a few decent restaurants to dine in.

We joined a bird watching tour at Black Rock area. It was a rare 37 degrees hot day and viewing birds along a dusty road looking towards the forest in the distance was too uncomfortable. We did see a number of birds, including Keelbill tocan, blue bunting, trogon etc. Compared with our birdwatching experiences in Costa Rica and Panama, there are far less birds here and are far away, not an experience to rave about.

Xunantunich

Barton Creek cave canoe to see offerings

Joined two tours to visit Mayan ruins, Xunantunich and Caracol, the previous one followed by canoeing in Barton Creek into a cave with stalactites and Mayan offerings. It is nice to know more about the history of Mayan in this area, from 500BC to the peak at 750 AD with estimated 3 million inhabitants (compared with 40,000 Belizian now), and the final decline at around 900AD after 150 years of drought, when the area was deserted. There are estimated close to 300 of such Mayan settlements, only 5 being excavated, partly, and renovated to open to visit.

Caracol, the tallest amd most extensive Mayan Ruin

The last day in Belize we joined the famous ATM Mayan cave tour. This is an underground cave half filled with water, where we need to wade across 3 rivers to get to. Once inside the totally dark cave, we wear life jackets, helmets and headlights to swim, climb over stalactites, squeeze through gaps, climb up 2 floors, and return the same way . 

 

The total trip is around 3km return and took 3 hours. Along the flat areas in the cave, where there are shallow depressions, we could see offerings, near the entrance are pots carrying grains gradually changed to human remains, from commoners to nobles further in, then small children. The timeline of thr offerings coincide with the long drought period from 750 to 900AD, suggesting that the Mayans were desperate and had been increasing the preciousness of the offerings to please the underworld powers to pray for rain, but in vain, leading to mass death and deserting the sites.

One contribution to drastic climate change was the vast deforestation during the Mayan period to sustain population growth.

It may look like the settlements were surrounded by forest, but actually it had been cleared to bare ground for farming, and trees burned to make lime to use in stone wall building.

History is repeating itself, and there is a lot to learn from past events.