BELIZE!: Day 19- Second Excursion: Caracol Mayan Ruins

What another amazing day in Belize! We woke up early this morning to drive out and see the Caracol Mayan Ruins. We had to be downstairs by 7:30am to get in a van and drive three long hours to the site. Again to my surprise, the van was air-conditioned, but the roads were not paved. It was a very bumpy ride!

Julia walking across the river to climb boulders with me

About an hour and a half into the drive, we stopped at the Rio Frio Cave. Belize has one of the largest cave systems in Central America. The country has an abundance of limestone rock, hence an abundance of caves. Caves are formed when the relatively soft limestone rock is eroded by water over millennia. The massive 65-foot arched entrance of the Rio Frio cave is its signature. Located in the Mountain Pine Ridge area, in Augustine, the dome of Rio Frio is the largest in the country. A river runs through the cave and there were large boulders, some covered with moss, that many of us climbed on to see more of the cave. When inside, the other large entrance can also be seen, as the entire cave is less than half-mile long. (Confession: I stole some of this info from Wikipedia!) It was a really neat start to the day.

A view of the mouth from inside the cave

A view of the exit from inside the cave

Everyone on the beach inside the cave

Limestone

After the exploring Rio Frio, it was back in the van to drive another hour and a half to Caracol. It was a rough, bumpy ride, but definitely worth the trip. Caracol is located in the foothills of the Maya Mountains and covers an area much larger than present-day Belize City (the largest metropolitan area in the country) and supported more than twice the modern city's population. We learned a lot about Caracol's history, its discovery, and its inhabitants from our guide Luis. He was very friendly and full of knowledge, but a little hard to understand through his accent.

Caana

We climbed all the way to the top of Caana ("sky-palace"), which is the largest building at Caracol. I think we went up close to 200 stairs--and not normal size stairs, these stairs varied in height but some were like 10 inches high! It remains one of the largest man-made structures in Belize. I was exhausted when I got to the top but the views were spectacular. At the top of Caana there were three more structures, two of which we could climb to the top of. I think these were tombs of dead rulers.

View from the top of the Caana

On top of Caana, about to climb to the top of the highest tomb

Shot from the top of the highest structure (those are the other two structures on top of Caana)

View from the highest point on top of Caana

View from the second highest structure on Caana (the highest is on the left)

Me on top of the second highest structure

We also visited another plaza of structures where the temples were. We climbed to the top of two more structures, but they were not as high.

The view of the plaza from the highest temple.

While we viewed the ruins, we also got to see some really cool trees and birds.

Ceiba tree (this tree was enormous, the picture does't do it justice.) It was the Mayan's World tree. This one had recently been wrecked in a storm and lost its branches.

This is actually a picture of two trees. The one is wrapping around the other. Our guide said that at some point the lighter colored one that wraps itself around the other, eventually kills the other tree and completely surrounds it leaving a hollow center. I can't remember what they were called.

Crazy bird nest things. They were the yellow tailed something birds.

Our guide told us that they like to call this tree the "Tourist Tree" because it's red skin peels like tourists who get sunburned while visiting Belize.

After leaving the ruins (when we didn't think our day could get any better), we drove to Big Rock Falls for a swim. It was a steep hike down, but we practically ran down the rocky trail once we heard running water. There was a big waterfall that flowed down into two pools where we could swim. We all ripped off our clothes and jumped right in! The water was clear and the waterfall was strong. We even climbed up on the side of the waterfall and jumped down (about 50 feet at the highest point) into the pool below. It was so much fun! Julia and I especially couldn't get enough of jumping off the rocks. We jumped off five times! It was a rough climb (no path) to the kind of flat part at the top where we could jump (my knees and hands took a beating), but totally worth it! I could of spent all day there! We all had a blast!