“It doesn’t matter how experienced a person is when traveling. The world is forever different than what you expect. Clarity is largely a retrospective.” – Old Sean
Sudden Guatemala
Belize was never exactly a bucket-list country for me. I knew remarkably little of it and the only time I ever considered visiting was during my stint in Southern Mexico, where I half-contemplated taking a bus across the boarder to check out the land. A trip of convenience, perhaps, and one I ultimately didn’t take.
That was a mistake. Belize is fantastic. And very worthy to remain high on my travel list.
I flew out of Costa Rica and landed in Guatemala City for a thirteen hour layover, which I spent walking around the area nearby the airport. I apparently landed during some sort of holiday, because hoards of people thronged the exit gates with balloons and signs. In the background, fireworks were cresting the horizon, their pops and crackles hitting me moments later.
I ended up staying at Mariana’s Petit Hotel for the evening, which kept me comfy, ensured I had a shower, very early breakfast, time with a tiny, potato-shaped dog and a ride to the airport, courtesy of my host. I got aboard my flight, a small plane with only three other people where the flight attendant offered to buckle my computer carry-on bag into it’s own seat.
Landing in Belize
A couple of short hours later, I was in Belize, landing at Philip SW Goldson International Airport. I ended up ducking back into the airport on the departure side to await another incoming flight, as this wasn’t a solo journey. For the first time since leaving the US, I would be traveling with companions.
Both hailing from Texas, my friends Mel and Tim met me at Crystal Auto Rental where we clambered into a white Patriot with four-wheel drive.
And then we were off.
Belize, especially in the immediate area around inland Belize City is a hot, humid and impenetrable swamp. Low foliage and bogs are visable in every direction for miles, and the main road has very few detours or alternate routes. Water and flooding are apparently expected in bulk here, since the vast majority of houses and businesses we passed were built upon hefty stilts. True to Central American culture, these buildings were often painted vibrant hues of teal, orange, yellow, green or blue.
As we drove into the afternoon, it quickly became apparent that Belize is a staunch observer of the Sabbath. We had arrived on a Sunday and there were basically no shops or restaurants opened for the first hour of our drive.
We had to drive all the way to Belize’s inland state capital, Belmopan, in order to find a restaurant open for service. Our first meal in Belize turned out to be pizza from Dada’s Pizza, where got to try Belize’s local beer icon, Belkin Beer. I promptly managed to embarrass myself by trying to utilize my Spanish when ordering food.
My Spanish was fine, but Belize is an English colony. Queen Victoria is right there on every dollar and I was sputtering out my elementary Spanish while getting a lot of strange looks.
In my defense, Guatemala was completely Spanish speaking. Mexico to the North, also Spanish. I haven’t been to a Central American country that didn’t speak Spanish. I wasn’t aware Belize didn’t have similar linguistic trends.
Against my defense, they did say “Hello, how are you?” in English when we walked in.
Foreign Road Trip
By this time, however, we had gradually emerged from the bog-lands and into the low mountains. The air’s humidity sloughed away and the temperature became bearable. Tim pulled off to the side of the road when he spotted a wagon selling bottled wine, and we were soon driving with three bottles of 福 Yes Wine, or Good Fortune Yes Wine. (The Hanyu pinyin Phonetic System, or Chinese sounds for 福 is Fuk, which makes this Fuk Yes Wine). Pretty good stuff.
We continued to push on, finally winding through the western portion of the country, eventually reaching San Ignacio, where we planned on staying. We had managed to get a small AirBnB on the corner of Cahal Pech Village Resort, pretty overlook gazing over San Ignacio. Our lodgings were complete with air conditioning, Netflix and a bunk bed, which basically meant the party never stopped.
Also, access to the hotel’s pool, bar, restaurants, balcony view of the mountains may have helped bolster the party vibe.
An Arrival in San Ignacio
San Ignacio is a grand little town. Granted, first impressions weren’t all that strong. Between the Belizean COVID Curfew of 9 PM, the quiet lifestyles found on Sundays and a lack of readily available restaurants open at night, the small city seemed a bit like a ghost town.
That being said, San Ignacio is actually a pretty place. In daylight hours, crowds of people keep the streets alive and active, banishing my first impressions. Built near the sweeping Macal River, the city is on a vaguely uniform grid. Houses, like much of the country, are often built high on stilts to stave off flood damage.
There are banana and coconut trees in abundance, steep hills tracing the edges of the city, great sweeps of power lines tangled up in odd directions, dirt roads melding randomly with concrete and narrow bridges arcing over the river.
The downtown area is a tight series of loops absolutely packed with restaurants and there is a bustling awning-market camped next to the river (San Ignacio Market). Like most Central American towns, San Ignacio has it’s name in huge, proud and colorful letters next to the entrance to the city, right where their weekend market sets up shop. Along the medians of roads sit tire artworks, most often rubber bent into the shapes of swans and painted rugged white.
Mayan Territories
After a full night of drinking poolside cocktails and absolutely ignoring a movie we put on Netflix, we passed out and prepped to wake up early the following day.
San Ignacio has access to three famous Mayan ruins in the immediate vicinity. The Cahal Pech Archeology Reserve is the smallest of these, but exists inside the boundaries of San Ignacio. Most people staying in San Ignacio can hike to it by following the Macal River.
Outside the city, there’s also Tikal or Yax Mutal which is one of the largest urban centers of Pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located across the contested Guatemalan-Belizean Boarder, which generally requires a tour to get across.
The final ruin is the immensely famous Xunantunich Maya Ruins (Maiden of the Rock), just west of San Ignacio. This was the location where we bet our proverbial chips.
In what would become a daily oversight, Tim, Mel and I woke up well before the rest of Belize, hoping to get an early jump on our day. Our sleep cycles were already habitually tempered by early morning work schedules.
We arrived in Benque Viejo Del Carmen for breakfast well before anything was open, including the ruins themselves. First, we loitered around back alleys and dirt roads until a few basic grocery stores opened but eventually we found a taco stand which provided a holy amount of miniture chicken tacos in tin foil.
Xunantunich
Hunger sated, we wandered over to the Xunantunich Maya Ruins. The ruins are accessible using a free ferry which goes back and forth across the small river at necessary intervals. If one is so inclined, they can bring their vehicle on the ferry and have it chug across and then drive the one-mile road to the ruins. Otherwise, a person can park on the opposite side of the river and tackle the ferry and road on foot.
There’s also a bus route that can be taken, although the schedule is somewhat difficult to figure out. In all cases, be sure not to leave belongings in a vehicle, even locked belongings, as tourist rental cars are considered good targets.
Our personal ferry ride was under construction while we drifted over the narrow river, with several men slicing off metal nubs on the base of our ride with violent sparks being flung harmlessly everywhere.
Xunantunich Maya Ruins are a very cool set of buildings, plazas and temple grounds. The carefully stacked grey walls rising like steep mounds are similar to many other Mayan sights and constructs. Off in the distance, we could hear a howler monkey hooting in the mountains. Great lizards and iguanas often sprint alongside the verdant green grasses in the area, and the jungle has been hacked back to reveal perfectly flat plains between the buildings and extended views into the surrounding land.
Most unique to Xunantunich Maya Ruins are the carvings found on the main temple. Incredibly well-preserved, these features have the interlocking snakes, whirls and stone blocks iconic of Mayan culture, somehow intact after a millennia of elements.
The Temple is reportedly haunted, with several accounts referring to a “Stone Woman” Spirit patrolling the grounds in perfectly white attire with glowing eyes until disappearing through a stone wall. Tim did his very best to make sure we got possessed, but either the Stone Woman share’s Mel’s and Tim’s exact humor, or all of us are intact.
Finding Falls
After finishing our time at the ruins and taking a mentally concerning number of photos of local palm trees, we wandered back to San Ignacio for a brief breather and some food. As a virtue of our extremely early morning, we had pretty much the rest of the day available. Hence, we grabbed some cash and a few of Coke Ice-Cream Floats from Ko-Ox Han Nah, filled up on Belize’s incredibly expensive gas and drove to the next item on my research list, Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve.
About an hour later, we passed into the Reserve. The trees swiftly shifted taller, we breezed by numerous construction vehicles and pines became the predominant flora of the land. The road had been recently graded and refined, so while four-wheel-drive was a comfort, we probably could have managed with just two.
It was still a somewhat bumpy ride, however, and between the depressions in the road and the numerous speed bumps Belize employs, we quickly learned that our poor Patriot vehicle didn’t have much in the way of shocks.
Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve is worth a day all on it’s own. Deep in the woods, there are numerous points to clamber, swim, hike or delve. Our first stop was the Pinol Cascades, which are a series of thin waterfalls tumbling into a tiny pool that makes a nice wading area. Evergreens sweeten the smell of the air and the rocks leading up the waterfalls are a delight to clamber over. There’s a small alcove for roasting or barbequing, which Tim wanted to utilize for roasted goat. Belize has a-many delicious-looking goats.
Water Nooks
We didn’t end up swimming here, but instead forged onward to Rio On Pools. This large expanse of land overlooking a low valley is prime estate for swimming in algae-slick pools, wiggling down forceful little waterfalls and hopping across boulders. There are places to sit under a waterfall massage, great rock islands for sunbathing, deep blue expanses for treading water (or failing to tread water for myself) and shady trees to shelter under. The rocks are a bit of a trial to hop around without some sort of footwear, but grand fun if your careful and have soles that are tough enough to withstand a stray pebble.
We paddled around here for a while, where my earthly possessions took a couple of hits. My ancient blue sunglasses, which I had bought an era ago for twelve yuan in China finally snapped, vanishing to the bottom of a twelve foot pool. My hat likewise vanished after I missed catching it after sliding off a low waterfall.
Such is the price of adventure. Perhaps that sacrifice to the old river gods of Mayan lands lent us some goodwill though, for our trip remained smooth. Fortune holding is an unusual sensation for me.
Recollections
Concerningly smooth and fortunate travel, I had the chance to reminisce about previous journeys.
Tim and I had traveled together before, extensively. We had taken road-trips in our youth to dozens of ill-advised locations and always encountered risks that were just within our parameters to survive.
We had crawled up Taos in the early spring, getting effectively stuck in deep snowbanks without true winter gear until Tim fashioned snowshoes from pine branches and duct tape. We had wandered, lost and befuddled in an endless storm through a trek in the Ozark Mountains, starting paltry fires in stone bathrooms we were forced to abandon immediately afterwards. We had managed to create an unfortunate campfire ringed with sandstone, which of course exploded shrapnel on us after the air pockets within superheated.
So both Tim and I were a little paranoid at how well things were going. Perhaps Mel is just good luck though, because our fortune held as we wandered off to our next location.
Torrential Massage
For our final stop of the day, we reached Big Rock Falls, a crushing waterfall cascading down dark stones into a pair of thin pools. There are steep stairs leading down to the waterfall, all of which are gripped by sideways-struck nails to prevent footsteps from slipping.
The falls themselves are fantastic. Tall and powerful, the water strikes the surrounding stones instead of hammering straight down, meaning the ambitious and insane can force their way into the narrow, surprisingly deep chasm and fight the torrent for a time. It feels exactly like a multi-angle pressure washer, with visibility vanishing under whitewater with each step forward.
Tim, undaunted, led the way in after jumping off a cliff or two to prep himself. Mel was likewise slammed by the torrent, but only through Tim’s assistance. For myself, I stayed in for as long as I could, taking my concussions for granted and gulping down just as much water as air in each breath.
After a tour group arrived, we made ourselves scarce and meandered back up the slope and to the car. We also considered checking out the famous Rio Frio Cave nearby, but decided our energy was slipping and the feature was in the opposite direction of home.
Tiny Town Recuperation
Sated, we drove back into town, changed once more and began cruising through San Ignacio looking for dinner. We ended up at a quiet eatery for the evening called Crave House of Flavor, which serves great coconut shrimp, vegetarian risottos, cocktails with flower-sliced strawberries and a couple of other dishes.
It was at this time we wandered back to our hotel with a hefty bottle of tequila and sprite to lounge in the hotel pool. Because we hadn’t spent enough of our day in water quite yet. We ended up finishing up the night with another Netflix movie and a strange series of bets regarding Russel Crow and Gerard Butler which earned me two ice creams.
On that high note, I’ll stop here. Tomorrow, we plan on heading on a guided tour for zip-lines and cave tubes in the high tropics. So until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written August 9th, 2021
Read more about visiting San Ignacio and seeing the world by visiting Leftfade Trails Blog.
Affiliate Disclosure: Leftfade Trails contains affiliate links, so using services or products through these links supports the website, at no extra cost to the user. All links are to tested services and products designed to aid travelers on their journeys. Some links specifically connect to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate this website earns from qualifying purchases.
Skog Å Kust Watertight Day Bag
Everyone should have a day bag. My favorite is the Skog Å Kust Watertight Bag. It’s easy to sling over my shoulders and lets me walk without fear of m devices getting damaged in the rain. Better yet, I can go swimming with electronics whenever I need to.
