Day Three: Caracol

Rio Frio Cave
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Breakfast is family style, but I need to leave at 7am for my tour so I eat my eggs, bacon, toast and fruit alone. (I pass on the beans.)

Caracol (which means snail in Spanish) are the Mayan ruins that I will be visiting today. Fernando, tour-guide-in-training, and new to Pooks, drives me to Teakettle, where we pick up Mike, my tour guide who drives us the rest of the way. It’s a very long drive, much of it on unpaved bumpy roads. The rain the day before makes the roads muddy and slippery. We don’t make it up two hills in the 2WD Toyota van and have to back down and get a running head start for another try. These Mayan ruins are close to Guatemalan border some 46 miles into the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve. We have to check in at the ranger station. Because we are early for the 10:30 escort in, we go to the Rio Frio Cave which has an impressive 65-foot arch as its opening. It’s only about a half mile in length, very green at the big opening. The smaller opening at the other end lets in brilliant light. We then queue up for escort to the site. Escort is needed because we are close to the Guatemala border and there is fear of rebels/pirates. About 8 vehicles take about an hour to drive into Caracol, located in the Ciquibul National Park in the southwestern Cayo district. As we near the site we encounter paved road.

Once home to 150,000 people (half of Belize’s current population) Caracol is the largest Maya center in Belize and has a dominant place in Maya history as one of the greatest city-states of the Classic era (AD 250-950).

Guard at Caracol.
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Once home to 150,000 people (half of Belize’s current population) Caracol is the largest Maya center in Belize and has a dominant place in Maya history as one of the greatest city-states of the Classic era (AD 250-950). There is a guest center, gift shop, picnic area and very nice bathrooms. Armed guards patrol the site. I’ve basically got my own private tour. It’s just me and Mike and Fernando, who came to learn. The site isn’t crowded at all. We go in the opposite direction from the others. We first see the huts outside the Central Acropolis where the archeologists used to live when they were excavating the site. Then we come upon the reservoir. It is still filled with water and is like giant swimming pool over run with lilies. Group D is the South Acropolis. There are tombs at the lower levels as the Mayan would bury their dead as they constructed up. There are no cemeteries in Mayan culture. Next is the first ball court. The winner (or loser) could have been sacrificed. In 1986 archeologists found a marker in the center of the court which tells of Caracol’s defeat of Tikal (a large Mayan site in Guatemala) in AD 556 and again in AD 562.

Mike, my guide, explaining the South Acropolis.
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Group A is where the Temple of the Wooden Lintel, a place for astronomical observatory, is found. It’s amazing that one of the wooden beams in an archway at the top still exists and hasn’t eroded away after all these years in the jungle. Wasps have taken up residency however.

The largest temple ‘Caana’ or ‘Sky Place’ is a massive pyramid rising 140 feet above the jungle floor. It is the tallest manmade structure in Belize. The rooms at the very top were most likely the royal family’s residential chambers. We climb to the top and the view is spectacular. A little afraid of heights and unsteady without a railing, I come crawling down on my ass. Pook’s has packed an amazing picnic lunch for us. We can’t find our escort for the trip back, but we leave at 2 as planned. Luckily, we make it back without getting robbed.

On top of Caana.
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After the guard station we stop at Rio On Pools. There are beautiful waterfalls and pools. I don’t have my bathing suit, but I wade around. Two of the guys swimming say they got leaches under the waterfall. I wanted to go there, but glad I didn’t. There is a long bumpy ride back the way we came, arriving ‘home’ around 5:30.

The main course for dinner is chicken curry. It’s delicious. The other 5 guests went to the ATM cave today and I hear tales of how amazing it was. I will forgo zip-lining and cave tubing in order to go to the underworld the next day. According to Maya beliefs, heaven was composed of 13 different levels. 9 levels exist below the earth and caves are the access to this lower world.