9. San Ignacio and Caracol (15-17 Jan20)

Having left Caye Caulker later than intended, we ‘had’ to charter a private transfer from Belize City to San Ignacio rather than getting a local bus (shame!). This was a decision made unanimously by the group. The private transfer was faster and less faffy than the local bus option so we didn’t loose much time by staying longer on the island. Below is a pic of me on the water taxi.

We arrived at San Ignacio early enough to have a look around the town before heading to the hotel (which was out of town). There were some really pretty parts, but most of it felt run down and none of us were too bothered about staying for long.

While in town, we headed down to see the river (and some of the group decided to play pooh sticks… shame they got stuck under the bridge though!!)

The Aguado hotel was quite a pleasant place to stay. The had a turtle pond and sold beer (what more could you want?). We even had an ‘interesting‘ chat with an out of work archaeologist and his son 🤣 Some people!!

The next day most of the group tried to go tubing. Unfortunately it had been raining too much and they ended up going caving instead. Maybe our tour lead shouldn’t have let us know that she had never successfully gone tubing as something had happened every time she tried to go, meaning it was always cancelled!

I didn’t really fancy tubing so didn’t even try to go. The local Mayan ruins at Caracol sounded amazing so I went there instead. It turned out to be one of my favourite sites.

There weren’t many people there so taking clear photos was relatively easy… when it wasn’t raining that is! At one point we had to huddle inside a doorway most of the way up a pyramid due to a sudden and torrential downpour.

The Caracol site was huge. Our guide suggested that there may have been 180k inhabitants at one stage, more than double Belize City today (if you believe it).

The ruins are located within the Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve so the journey there and back was stunning. It just wasn’t particularly photogenic due to the rain (it obscured things rather than adding atmosphere).

We had a slight scare on the way back as the car started sliding sideways due to the slippery mud on the road. We had just watched a truck do something similar. The guide rescued it so we were ok and actually got back. We were due to visit a cave on the way back but the road to get to it was dangerous in these conditions so we didn’t attempt it. We did manage to visit a river with some pretty waterfalls.