San Ignacio, Belize

Following the Mayan Route, we visited Xunantunich and the ActunTunichilMuknal (ATM) cave to get a little feel for the Mayans that lived here so long ago. Xunantunich is very accessible from San Ignacio, and has one of the largest castillos.We traveled to the site early one morning by bus and then hand cranked ferry.

We found ourselves to be the only people at the whole site for the first hour of the day, before being swarmed by endless amounts of Belieze’s finest 3rd graders!Climbing the Castillo made for an epic view of the surroundings, including views of Guatemala.

Our visit to the ATM cave included spelunking, wading and swimming through a beautiful cave.

We snuck past the batsgoing 1.5k deeper into the cave to find Mayan remains, including huge pottery vessels and 15 skeletons believed to have been sacrificed in this entryway to their underworld.The cave is most famous for the Crystal Maiden which is a skeleton of a young girl in which the bones have calcified, giving it a glimmering look.

We frequented the local farmers market and had a little culinary tour sampling lots of different foods including fry jacks, papusas, salbutes, panades, and garnaches!All are pretty much the same ingredients (corn with some filling) in lots of different forms