Well, after a bumpy, but beautiful drive over Mountain Pine Ridge and through the deep Belizean jungle we arrived at Caracol, the largest Mayan ruins in Belize. Archeologists are discovering that Caracol was likely a bigger kingdom than Tikal in the Mayan world, and they have proof that Caracol defeated Tikal during a war. We were the only tourists to go to Caracol all day so we had it all to ourselves. Since it is the middle of the rainy season, not tourist season, and it was raining throughout the day I guess no other people wanted to brave the road to Caracol. As I walked on the jungle road and then suddenly saw the first temple rising up high through the rain forest I literally gasped. All I can say is it was amazing! I absolutely cannot believe that the Mayans were able to build such astounding edifices in the middle of the thick jungle. Just seeing the thick forest around, it is astounding that anyone could even live around here so long ago let alone build such an amazing city. The temple is 43 meters high, so about 130 ft. I climbed to the top and had a great view of the landscape around the city. What is also amazing to me is when I looked off the back end of the temple there was just jungle. The front side is completely excavated from top to bottom, but the back literally has jungle all the way up to the top. I noticed that in the back there is a layer of dirt covering the temple maybe a few feet deep and the jungle has totally overgrown it, complete with very tall trees. It basically looks like a big hill from the backside. It’s no wonder this site is only partially excavated and that they are still finding other Mayan ruins with probably many others undiscovered. It would be easy for one to pass right by such ruins with all the overgrowth and never know they are there. This temple I was standing on is actually the main and largest temple in Caracol and it is called the Caana. It is a large pyramid with a flat top. On the top of this plaza there are three mini temples on three different sides of the temple. The central temple on top had a few rooms with staircases that went down into the darkness below. I didn’t have a light and wasn’t too keen on heading down there and meeting up with some critter so I didn’t bother exploring. On top of this temple I also saw some humongous spiders, much bigger than any spiders I’ve seen in the States. They weren’t as big as say a tarantula, but they were awfully close.
We took walk throughout all of the ruins of Caracol. They were all pretty cool, but none as massive or impressive as the first temple. There were about 3 different ball courts, where the Mayans played some sort of game. I’m not sure how the game was played, but I Kib was telling me he couldn’t remember if it was the winner or the loser, but one of them was sacrificed to the Mayan gods. I guess I need to watch “Apocalypto” and maybe that would tell me.
When I came down off of the Caana Temple Kib was sitting on the bench with some creature crawling on his shoulder. I couldn’t quite make it out till I got close and to my surprise there was a monkey crawling around on him! He said he was sitting there and it just appeared and jumped on him. It had its tale wrapped around his neck. As we were leaving the plaza a worker got our attention and explained that it was his monkey. I guess as a baby it fell high out of tree to the ground below and was stranded so he had nursed it to health and it had basically become tame. It ran around the grounds during the day, but always followed them back to the worker’s quarters and would sleep there at night. He explained she is a Black Howler Monkey. I need to read more about them, but I think I remember reading somewhere that they are native to Belize and a protected species here. It was fun to get an up close experience with her, but after a while she got a bit annoying. She wouldn’t get off of Kib all morning and just clinged to him. I tried to get her to crawl on me, but she refused. When it was time to go Kib couldn’t really get her off of him although he wasn’t being too aggressive. He got in the car and pulled out hoping she would jump off, but she never did. I told him he better get more aggressive or she was going to become his new pet. He grabbed her forcefully and tried to throw her down outside the car and she freaked out! She was squealing and trying to bite him, in fact, she actually did get a few bites in but didn’t break skin. After he eased off, she stopped freaking out and crawled back to his shoulder and sat there calmly. Then he tears her off his shoulder and tries to give her to me telling me I needed to throw her out my window. I’m thinking, “Get that filthy thing away from me!”, but I tried to get a hold of her and she tried biting my finger off! I was luckily too quick for her. We were in a bit of a dilemma with this ravenous monkey trying to bite us! Of course, if we didn’t try to get her out of the car she was as calm as could be. Finally, Kib grabbed her hard and held her out the window. I think this is where he got the bite, but he threw her on the ground and carefully drove off trying to not run over her. The whole time she’s trying to scratch her why up into the vehicle. When we finally got past her and on the road she was running fast trying to catch us. Luckily we were a little faster, and this was my last memory of Caracol: The beautiful grounds in the distance and a crazy howler monkey running with all her might trying to catch us. You couldn’t write this stuff!
We made our way back up the bumpy road and stopped at a few places along the way. The first was Rio Frio Cave, which is basically a massive tunnel that was carved through the mountain by the Frio River. This thing was humongous and a bit creepy. I went a ways in until I could see both ends of the cave. I didn’t have a light so I didn’t feel comfortable going any further, especially since Kib told me there was a deep ravine somewhere around and to be careful. There is actually one place in the cave where there is a sandy beach along the side of the river. I could tell from all the tracks that people go in there to swim and hang out. Swimming in a cave river doesn’t seem very enticing to me, but Kib told me it was a pretty popular thing for the locals. The whole area around the cave reminded me of the movies Rambo 2, Missing in Action, and Uncommon Valor. Actually, there are a number of 80s movies I used to watch as kid that were about the Vietnam War that the area reminds me of. Belize in general reminds me of those movies, but in this area we were out in the middle of nowhere and in the jungle so I kept thinking of scenes in those movies when they’re trekking through the jungle. The rain forest is crazy. It is soooo thick with foliage and wild life. There are so many insects around. I think I saw like 6 different species of ants scurrying around the jungle floor. The spiders are absolutely freaky and I’m sure they would scare the pants off of Jessica. She always got scared by the dinky spiders in Missouri and these ones you can’t just wipe up with some toilet paper and flush down the toilet. They may clog the toilet. I remember I had to get in the crawl space under our house in Missouri a few times for different things. If our house had been in the rain forest I don’t think there is any way I could have got myself under there. By the way, when I say rain forest it’s not technically considered a rain forest here, but it is pretty darn close!
After the cave we headed down the road some more to Rio on Pools. This is an area where the river crosses over an expanse of huge granite boulders and forms a number of waterfalls and pools. It is a very popular swimming spot for locals and tourists. I had brought my swimming suit, but didn’t really feel like swimming. The water is normally crystal clear, but was totally murky today. I guess this is due to all the rain they’ve been getting. It was also pouring at this point; not a really good day for a swim. It was fun to see though because it is an absolutely beautiful area and right around the area of pines on Mountain Pine Ridge.
We basically were done at this point and headed off the Mountain Pine Ridge. The area is pretty crazy, because there is a rapid change from jungle to pine forest then back to jungle. It’s not like an American pine forest, but there is a lot less foliage than the jungle and scattered tropical pine trees. The drive was actually one great part of the trip because of all the beautiful scenery although like I said, I bit bumpy.
When we got back to town I tried to give Kib money for gas, but he wouldn’t take it so I offered to buy him dinner. We went to an Italian place he knew of and I was totally fine with that obviously! The restaurant was run by Fabio and his wife who are from a small village close to Venice. The food was pretty good, but not the best Italian food I’ve had. It was right downtown though and actually cool to see San Ignacio in the light for once.
I better get to bed. I’m hitching a bus ride to Belize City early in the morning to head out to the cayes. Hopefully I’ll get there okay, since it’s quite a trek getting out there without my own transportation. I’m staying at Popeye’s in a cabana that is right close to the sea. Should be quite an adventure.
Caracol from the top of the temple
Plaza A at Caracol 
Rio on Pools at Mountain Pine Ridge
Me, Kib, and Jakie the Black Howler
Kib must have not known when it was going to take the picture!
Videos to come if I can get them on here.
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