Caracol
I got my breakfast of banana shake and pancakes at Martha’s and I came to the agency at 7:15am, waiting for the bus at 7:30am. I played at the internet a little and I was on my way with a minibus to Caracol, the largest Maya site in Belize, famous for its observatory. There were 3 more people in the minibus, two Canadians from Alberta, Bruce and Jilliane, and a guy, Ed, from Raleigh, NC.
The road to Caracol is extremely bad and very long. Because of this there were attacks on the road, form Guatemalan gangs coming over the border, at its nearest point, the road being at 8 miles to the border. And because Guatemala considers Belize part of it and they hate each others is no extradition treaty for criminals. Sergio, the driver and guide, told us many stories about the past attacks that happened about 2 years ago, escaping one of them by just by a hair. As a result the Belize officials took note and now from a security point where we had to stop, we traveled in convoy all the cars together, about 4 of them, followed by a car with two soldiers with guns. The road is beautiful, through pine trees, that unfortunately was attacked by a beetle infestation in 1998 and destroyed 60% of the trees that were standing only with their trunks in the air like after a big fire. After that we traveled more through tropical forest, stopping first in a village San Antonio, close to San Ignation and latter to the security point. Considering the time for picking up the other passengers and with all the stops the entire road took about 3 hours and we entered Caracol’s gate at 10:30am. Louis took us in a tour, explaining about plants and trees, the curative features of some of the plants we saw and about Maya, Caracol and demise of the civilization. Great stories!
Caracol was a great center of power that was able to defeat and conquer Tikal and Naranjo around 600AD. It is the largest city in those times, and its population at its peak was probably 150000 people, double than the present population of Belize City. But was astounded us the most where the monumental buildings that do not have a par. There are one of the most impressive monuments I saw, especially Caana translated as the Sky Palace, the main palace, observatory, and administrative building. Caracol, that means snail in Spanish, is uncovered, like all the other sites in Mexico, and its plazas are spectacular. In spite of being the largest site , few mounds were cleaned and it has only 4 plazas to be visited. The most spectacular is the one that contains Caana, one of the most complex buildings, if not the most complex buildings I saw in Maya world. The Sky palace is located in a symmetrical square with buildings on both sides and a mound , partially excavated in front. The next square, that was also the most important is the one containing on one side the Palace of the Wooden lintels facing the famous observatory, the place were the priests were making decisions about the crops and such based on the lunar calendar. We climbed all on them, because here you can and saw many other places, in total about 4 complexes in about 2 hours. At 1:15 pm we were back at the entrance, had the lunch that the guides are bringing and took a stroll inside the museum. At 2:00 pm all the cars had to leave, escorted by the same police car with guns. So you cannot stay latter than 2:00pm. On the way back we stopped in two other locations. The first stop was at a magnificent cave that was formed on Rio Frio. The river passes inside this cave full of stalactites and smelling of bat dung. We stayed there 20 minutes and in ten more minutes we stopped again at the pools formed by Rio On, a flat area in the river where you can bath or just admire the river. We stayed there 45 minutes and we got into the water.
St Ignacio
At 5:15pm we arrived back to San Ignacio where I came directly here at the Internet provided by Pacz Tours, free with trip purchase and I wrote for 3 hours the past blogs. I bought my ticket for tomorrow trip to the ATM cave, an interesting experience and rated as the best thing that you can do in Belize. I tried to eat something after these long blogs but many of the restaurants were closed so I went again to Serendib, where I got a great spicy dish of shrimps. In the restaurant I bumped into Ed, who is a criminal lawyer in NC, with whom I chat about trips and let him go because he was catching a bus at 6:30 to Belize and latter a boat to Caye Caulker, but we planned to meet in the Caye.
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