Plunge Into The Caves Of Belize

 

Psyche yourself for a journey into the Mayan underworld- Delve into the very rock on which Belize is founded, to discover dark realm of gushing rivers, ancient artifacts and the skeletal remains of sacrificial victims dispatched a millennium ago.

Location: Central Belize

Ideal Time Commitment: The days to one week

Best Time of Year: November to May

• Trekking through steaming jungle and wading through waist-deep  rivers to reach the sacrificial Crystal Maiden in Actun Tunichil Miknal.
• Spotting tapirs, anteaters, monkeys, a dizzying array of birds and -if you're really lucky- a jaguar at Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary.
• Meeting the modern day Maya in their villages in the southern Toledo district.
• Chilling out on the Northern Cayes and snorkeling or diving the Western Hemisphere's longest barrier reef.
• Taking the rough road to remote Caracol, the vast, jungle-clad Mayan city founded at least two millenia ago.
• Abseiling 90m down into the rainforest-lined Black Hole.

To the ancient Maya, the caverns, sinkholes, lakes and underground rivers in Belize- which now offer such great opportunities for tubing, kayaking, swimming and abseiling- were not adventure playgrounds, they were gateways to Xibalba, "Place of Fear"- the Mayan underworld, ruled by the gods.
Dawns's pink kiss is still fading from the sky as you set off through the jungle, wiping sleep from your eyes. Mist lingers in woolly tufts on the forest canopy ahead: moisture condensing in cold air, telltale signs of caves and steams, your guide tells you. An hour's trek through the dense forest is punctuated by waist-deep river crossings. The real adventure begins at the hourglass entrance to the Underworld: Actun Tunichil Muknal, the "Cave of the Stone Sepulchre".
You flick on your headtorch and swim into the cave, scrambling a kilometer upstream, chest-deep in chilly water. You clamber onto the rocks and finally  ascend into the cathedral. Through the soaring ceiling justifies the name. Skulls sparkle with calcite and ahead lies the object of your mission: the Crystal Maiden, a young girl, resting where she was killed over a thousand years ago.