Our border crossing from Guatemala* in to Belize was quick and easy, and Belize is not a big place. We stopped at the first town over the border for a couple of nights. I was interested in going to the Xunatunich Mayan ruins but we decided to save that for the next morning. Also the kids are the biggest fans of ruins. They’re sports about it: they’ll check out the cool stuff, pose for pictures, and read the signs, but after a few hours of tromping around they’re ready to move on. A border crossing and then ruins would not have made me popular.
The border crossing was quick was quick. In San Ignacio is a green iguana refuge. There are black iguanas all over Belize and Central America, but the green iguanas have been used for food and their eggs eaten and are apparently locally somewhat scarce. There is a small operation trying to raise more and introduce them back into the wild.
We took a quick tour of their hatchery and learned about the iguanas. We got to hold some of the adult iguanas that were too habituated to release: they are surprisingly heavy and very good at climbing. We then were introduced to the 8 juvenile iguanas that are going to stay at the refuge and not be released. These iguanas were then placed on our heads. It was fun.
Xunatunich is not as big as Tikal, but it is compact and like all the Mayan sites we visited only a fraction of the site has been excavated. There are suspicious looking mounds that dot the site and conceal further structures. At Xunatunich there was a group doing field work while we visited, so the excavations are still very much ongoing.
The site was dominated by a large temple at the head of an area of smaller temples. We were able to climb this structure (it is the second tallest structure in Belize, after another Mayan temple at a different site) and got a good overview of the site. The temple was also built in stages, so there was an initial climb up the pyramid and then we wound through the structure to the back to climb to the top.
The view from the top was a nice overview, and the complex would have truly been awe-inspiring in a world where it was the largest building anyone had ever seen. The guide spoke about rulers performing rituals atop the temple, and for the people standing at the base it would have been hard not to think the rulers we divinely inspired and communicating with the gods.
The smaller structures were also impressive, as they formed an administrative center with other temples and buildings for use by the ruling classes. We spent about two hours exploring the grounds with a guide. The site was just big enough to be impressive, and not too big to exhaust the attention spans of the kids.
*about the Belize/Guatemala border: it’s a long story, but Guatemala claims that all of Belize should belong to it. Belize and Guatemala have referred this to the ICJ for resolution. On the Guatemala side, road signs don’t refer to a border, they refer to it as a “line of adjacency”. The Wikipedia article has the tedious details. I’ll note that the Spanish version of that article also makes a point that it is “not an international border.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belizean%E2%80%93Guatemalan_territorial_dispute
2 Responses
What an interesting fact about Guatemala not recognizing Belize! Your family has certainly seen lots of ruins and it is encouraging to learn that the kids like to explore them. As your journey winds down I hope that you are not too disenchanted by the loss of continuous excitement and discovery that you have experienced on this trip. What a treasure you all have had!
It makes me wonder why, after so much time building those huge temples and pyramids, the people would ultimately desert them. It had to take them YEARS to build some of them!