You can read the introduction here, which lists everywhere we stayed in Belize and every service we used, with links, and can easily be used to put together your own itinerary.

Part one of the travelogue is about our arrival in Belize and first days in Hopkins.

Part two is about our motorcycle ride to San Ignacio and visits to St. Herman's Cave and the interior blue hole.


Caracol 

We were going to the ancient Mayan site of Caracol! We got up at 7ish, per my whining the day before that I wanted to sleep in, we had a way-too-leisurely breakfast at the restaurant at the Midas Resort, and we didn't hit the road until almost 9:30 a.m.

I'm going to offer some advice now, for any motorcycle riders who want to go to Caracol:

• Hit the road from San Ignacio by 8:30 a.m., at the very latest. 8 would be better, and any earlier would be even better. It's 85 km to Caracol from San Ignacio, and it took us two and a half hours on the Honda 150s - it would take more experienced riders two hours. Most of the road is still unpaved and some of it is REALLY difficult - and the road conditions change regularly because of weather and construction. And, quite frankly, once the road is fully paved, you will want to be at Caracol before the crowds - there are no crowds now, at all, but once that road is done, there will be huge crowds, including day trippers from cruise ships.
   
• You have to sign in at the military checkpoint well before the entrance to the site and you have to leave Caracol by 3 p.m. Budget time for both activities. It's another reason to go early.
   
• If it rains while you are on the road, you have to decide if you are going to push on to the site or turn back. When you see the unpaved part of the road, you will see why I say this: the road would be absolutely impassible on motorcycles or by a 4 X 4 after heavy rains. In heavy rain, this road is soup. It's mudslides. It's impassable.
   
• Take as much drinking water as you can carry, as well as snacks - there's no where to get food along the way nor in the park. We took Stefan's bag, and my purse, and we filled both with some snacks and a lot of water bottles we filled at the hotel before we left, along with some pants to change into.
  

Absolutely, as of February 2023, you need a 4 X 4 or off road motorcycles to get to Caracol, and I predict it's going to be that way for at least the next two years, through 2024, and probably through 2025. The road starts off paved, then turns into a very nicely formed flat gravel and firm dirt road, and then... NOT! It has very narrow places, places with deep ruts that will bottom out a passenger car or mini van, spots where you will get stuck without four-wheel drive, and whatever hazards have results from the road construction. There are still many stretches where you get to experience the original logging road conditions.

When the best part of the road, ends, there is NOTHING along the way - no ranches, no services, no resorts, no nothing. And the last few kilometers before the entrance are supposedly paved - HA! That last stretch was some of the most difficult part of the trip: it's a very narrow road full of pot holes, and the remaining pavement is broken and makes the journey quite treacherous.

And after all those warnings and cautions, I have to say: it was incredible to ride! This is the first time I've ever ridden that far off-road before. On my KLR, I would have been a mess. Even if it hadn't rained, I couldn't have done it on my KLR. But on that Honda 150, it was absolute doable by me, the forever novice - challenging, exciting, but doable. I never panicked on a hill or a turn going up a hill - I was nervous, I might say "eek" in my helmet, but I never panicked. I nimbly maneuvered around most hazards. I could stop in places I could never stop on my KLR to figure out a line or take a break. Was I scared? Yes! But I was also getting pumped up with each obstacle conquered. So THIS is why people like lighter bikes. Wow!

We came from San Ignacio through the village of San Antonio, which was picturesque and, had we had more time, I would have liked to ride just to there to have a walk around. There's a Mayan women's cooperative there that welcomes visitors, but you have to have reservations in advance.

The road to Caracol definitely fooled us at first since the first part of the road is newly paved and beautiful. After the pavement ends, the road is still well developed, and at one point, you are high in pines on a well packed dirt road, and if you couldn't see the jungle down below, you might think you were in Oregon. We passed some construction crews, and they never stopped working - they just waved us right through. At one point, we were riding on the sliver of side road next to the graded road, and then passed the bulldozer grading the road. I was very glad to have that hard packed sliver and not have to ride on that loose dirt.

A lot of the ride to Caracol is going through the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve. If you zoom in on an online map, you will see pools and falls and a cave that are open to the public. But there were no signs for such that we saw on the road. Zoom in on the area via Google Maps and you will see them. But I get the impression it's best to go with someone that's been before or a guide if you want to do that, and it's a separate trip from going to Caracol - not unless you spend only maybe 30 minutes at Caracol. Which would be stupid. As the road starts to become more hilly, you will pass the forest reserve office in the thick of your jungle ride - don't get confused and think that's the military checkpoint where you need to stop.

As we passed the forest reserve office, it started to rain. It wasn't drenching, but it was significant rain. We had seen breaks in the clouds, but had no idea if those breaks were coming our way. We were about half way in. There was no guarantee we could get back any more than there was we could go on. We stopped, talked, and decided to keep going. I started imagining us having to stay in Caracol for the night - maybe there would be a house there for staff? Could I sleep in a hammock? Because no way do people come in daily to work there from San Antonio, not on this road, so there had to be somewhere to house us for a night.

Just when I was thinking the road was not going to stay firm anymore or was going to become too slick to ride, the rain stopped. Hurrah! The road remained a challenge though - lots of hills and ruts here and there.

We then came to a large opening in the jungle - it was a compound, but there were no people that we could see. I"m not sure I even saw any vehicles. We came to an intersection, and there was a little hut next to it. That is the military checkpoint. This is a military base. I would have missed it if Stefan wasn't there - it was just an open sided hut. We walked up and inside, expecting to have to answer questions, show ID, etc. Nah - just signed into a notebook with a large machine gun laying next to it - the guard was seated, watching something on his phone (it has a lot of gunfire and screaming), and I'm not sure he even looked at us. There were 25 visitors at the site already, according to the log book. I wondered if we were the last ones for the day - it was already 10:35 a.m., and no one had signed in for an hour before us. We had at least an hour more of riding to make the entrance.

What's with the military checkpoint? Welp, years ago, there was a problem with Guatemalan bandits coming over the border and robbing tourists and researchers going to or from the site, as well as loggers. In years past, tourists all had to gather at the military checkpoint and leave together from that point at 9:30 a.m. with a military escort. They then all had to leave Caracol together at 2 p.m. The sign that declares this is still onsite at Caracol. And we heard that, if you get to the military checkpoint at 1 or later, headed for Caracol, they won't let you go on.

The road got particularly challenging after the checkpoint: lots of steeper hills, lots of narrow places, lots of washed out places. I was so hoping it hadn't rained much and that it wouldn't rain again. This was the hardest part of the road for me, with all these hills and more challenging conditions. At last, we came to what many guidebooks and online sites said was the "paved" part of the road before Caracol, and, wow, it was some of the hardest to navigate: it's very narrow, there was substantial overgrowth on either side of the road when we were there, and the road was more endless potholes than pavement. Use caution! But at least once you get to all that broken pavement, you know you are close to the site.

Caracol Archeological Site

When I saw the sign for the entrance to the site at last, I wanted to get off the bike and dance. WE WERE HERE AT LAST. The grounds were perfectly groomed, there was a multistory structure to the left, where the staff lives, a covered picnic area, clean, tidy bathrooms with flushing toilets next to it, a covered area with a few artifacts and the building where you pay your entrance fee. But no pyramids anywhere. The entrance fee was $15BZD / $7.50 USD. Which is ridiculous. Belize, charge $20 USD per foreign visitor. Even $25. Seriously.

There is no gift shop, no restaurant, not even water for sale - so glad we brought snacks and water ourselves. This will all change when the road is done. 

The guard was happy to keep our motorcycle gear in his office. I went to the bathroom to change from my motorcycle pants into my much more light weight hiking pants and saw a hornets nest high up in the rafters. Thankfully, I did not see any hornets.

It was starting to rain again, lightly. I didn't care. We were about to see our first Mayan pyramids. If we were stuck there overnight, so be it. There were three other vehicles in the parking lot - I thought there would be more. But I guess not everyone wants to schlep two and a half hours into the jungle to look at Mayan ruins. We, however, lover of old rocks stacked on top of each other, were here for it and giddy.

We had a look at the map on a sign at the start of the short hike, then began our hike through a beautiful jungle landscape.

After several yards, to our right, we could see the main plaza up ahead, with its pyramids all around. We reverently walked into the middle of it. It was lightly raining. The smell of freshly-cut grass was everywhere. We were alone in the plaza, standing before “Caana” or “Sky Place,” the tallest man made structure in Belize.

I cried.

I cried when I saw the pyramids of Egypt the first time. I was overwhelmed when I saw the the Teotihuacan Pyramids in Mexico. Humans can do such magnificent things. I wish we devoted ourselves more to such. I made a quickie short video to say more.

I'll leave it to you to go read about how tall and wide everything is. All I know is, the site is SO big. So massive. All of the structures, large and small, are a wonder of human achievement. Like all Mayan sites, this was once a thriving metropolis. The statistic you will hear frequently is that Caracol had a far larger population than Belize City. And you will also frequently read that this empire defeated the Tikal empire, and some say, the conflicts between Guatemala and Belize are rooted that far back.

The Caracol site is MASSIVE, far more than you will see with your eye. This has been revealed through the use of aircraft from the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping equipped with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) mapping tools. We LOVE NOVA and other science shows on PBS, so we were up-to-date on the use of LiDAR and its importance to archeology in Caracol specifically. The site has been studied and visited extensively by Dr. Diane Chase and her husband, Dr. Arlen Chase. They've been taking archaeological field teams out to Caracol since 1985, a time when the journey to the site was a two-day affair. If you spend any time at all reading about Caracol, you will come across their names over and over. This is my favorite article about them (great photos).

I knew I could not climb the Caana structure. So I waited and took photos and made that short video while Stefan went up. We were all alone - the few other visitors were elsewhere. We had the entire plaza to ourselves. There will come a day when that is not possible, when you will not be able to stand in this plaza alone, and when you cannot even walk up that pyramid. We were so honored to have this moment. Eventually looking up and seeing Stefan atop the pyramid, I was so jealous - but also humbled. I thought of what it must have looked like at night, the pyramids covered in stucco and colors, the holy people probably carrying torches, the light show in full effect.

The sun came out. The rain had stopped. It was glorious.

All of these ruins were hidden for centuries by mounds of sediment beneath a dense, old-growth rain forest. And most of the ruins still are, and you can see the mounds all around, all these thickly-covered structures. LiDAR allows researchers to see what's under the growth in incredible detail, without uncovering it, which would deforest an area the entire planet needs to be forested and would also expose the structures to the elements - the sediment protects them (though the tree roots tear them apart).

Like other ancient sites, these were once covered in color, they were not naked rock. We think of these structures looking just like we see them back in the day, but that's rarely the case: they were covered in stucco and painted. And, of course, there were more stelas - standing stones - covered in glyphs all around. Who knows what looters have spirited away from this site. And we also don't know all that was destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church, which burned all paper books and wooden religious images in great bonfires, their efforts to completely erase Mayan religion.

We had no guide. Hiring a guide would have meant coming by a four wheeled vehicle, not by the motorcycles. We really wanted to do this by motorcycle. I'm sure we missed so much as a result of not having a guide - some stela or alter with glyphs that you can only see because you have a guide that knows it's there. But I think for our first visit to a Mayan site, we needed to just wander around in wonder and awe. And that's what we did. We walked the entire site with the exception of the residential complex referred to as the Raleigh Group. We would have gone there had we arrived earlier, but by the time we got back to the office, it was almost 3, and everyone was supposed to have left by three. We'd spent more than three hours at Caracol - with a guide and all of our questions, that would have stretched out even more.

There was a line of shacks in an open field near one of the pyramids, including shacks with primitive showers and maybe latrines (it would have been quite a schlep up to the bathrooms at the visitor's center). We're not sure who is staying there. Locals - resident caretakers - that maintain the site? Archeologists and researchers? We did see a Mayan woman preparing some food, but I didn't want to bother her - she was very busy.  

One last note about all the road construction: this isn't just a paving project. This is a major road development that includes the construction of eight bridges, one of them particularly massive (as there's no bridge now, and it's the dry season, we rode under it). The goal isn't just a tourist road to Caracol. The goal is for an all-season road, even at the height of flooding season, so that the entire area can be accessed easier by both tourists and agricultural interests. The goal is also to firmly establish people in the area, so that militant and bandit Guatemalans don't make any more incursions into it, claiming it's theirs. Let's hope that any archeological finds are being properly reported and respected, and that there will remain a wide, wide area of jungle all along the road and all around the actual site of Caracol.

As this paper from the Chases and other researchers note:

A paved road will also provide access to the site by cruise-ship passengers that dock in Belize City, as it will make a day-trip by vehicle to Caracol a reality. This should substantially escalate the visitors to the site and increase the need to plan for the differentiation of visitor movement and access at the site to best preserve the archaeological and environmental resources.

There is a strong desire on the part of the Belize Government to make Caracol a World Heritage Site. World Heritage status would not only raise national pride in Belize but would also help make Caracol more secure.

While Caracol remains a legally protected area by virtue of being located in both a protected archaeological reserve and a protected forest reserve, World Heritage status would even more firmly establish the priorities of site conservation as well as make more resources available to enhance security for the general area.

The good news:

Learning from development at Tikal, Guatemala, there is currently no intent to develop hotels within the site itself. Future hotel development would likely take place in Douglas de Silva, some 22 miles from the site epicenter.

Anyway, it was time for us to leave Caracol.

Though I was anticipating the road back, I wasn't dreading it - I knew I could do it on the Honda 150. And I was pretty sure that I could do it a bit faster on the way back because I knew what to expect.

Eventually, we crossed what I guess is the Macal River - there had been a large construction crew there earlier in the day that had come in on a school bus, and I cannot imagine coming in on that road on a school bus! We took a break on the other side of the river, away from the parked construction equipment, stopping on a hill I never could have on my KLR. We took a pee break, Stefan wondered where the KSK Dschungelcamp der Bundeswehr was (the Germany military jungle camp apparently somewhere nearby, according to online maps) and he had a smoke. It was quiet - no sounds. Then we started up the bikes to push on. We came over the hill, and... I saw so many black dots in circles, circles on dark yellow, yellow that was glowing and moving quickly in the lush green brush. The dots and the yellow were on a large body that included a tail that looped up. It all disappeared into the greenery.

What?

Oh my god.

I'd just seen a jaguar.

I started moving on the bike, pumping my fist, celebrating, freaking out, elated as I rode on. Eventually we stopped, and I almost yelled, "It was a jaguar! Did you see it? Did you see it?" And he hadn't... I felt so bad. Stefan usually lets me be first, because I'm slower, and he wants to make sure he can help if I struggle. The downside of that arrangement is that I have to sometimes deal with dear jumping in front of me. But the upside is this.

Later, when we got back to the room, I looked up every big cat of Belize on my phone, to make absolutely sure it couldn't have been something else I'd seen, because people live their entire lives in Belize and never see a jaguar (just as people live in Oregon and never see a Mountain Lion - but if you hike a lot, they've seen you...). But no, it was not a little margay or ocelot. I'll never forget those dots and the size and that dark, glowing yellow.

The military compound hut was empty by the time we were back, but the log book was still there. The gun wasn't. Stefan took a photo of the log book, and we signed out - noting that, indeed, we'd been the last ones to go to the site. I wonder at what point they would have come looking for us?

Soon after we left, we came over the hill and into the valley where it had rained so much earlier, and I was stunned that, just like all of the ride back so far, the dirt was nicely hard packed and relatively dry. However, I was also stunned to see three people in what I thought was military camouflage walking on the road and thought, oh, shit, the Guatemalan bandits are back and we're about to get robbed! But then I saw two had surveyor equipment and I calmed down. As we passed the forest reserve office, we had to slow down because of a trucking coming our way, and a guy - part of the construction team, I guess - high up on the ridge at the office started cheering and clapping for us. Yeah, that's right, we're bad asses, woooo!

Yes, even at this late hour, there was still construction going on the road.  

We went back a slightly different way once we were back on pavement, straight back to the Western Highway instead of through San Antonio, on the newly constructed and oh-so-excellent road. We saw the sign for the Barton Creek Archeological Site - I'm not sure why we didn't stop. However, later having looked it up online, we never could have made it before closing time. The ride was really nice though back this different way and I enjoyed seeing all the Mennonites in their horse-pulled carts.

What makes them Mennonites and not Amish, by the way? After all, so many of them wear beards and the men are as restricted in how they dress as the women, and so many eschew from modern technologies. A lot of people think the difference in Mennonites and Amish is that Mennonites aren't as strict as the Amish about how they dress, about using cars, etc. But while that's often a difference you see, it's NOT the fundamental difference in these groups - it's not what makes one group Amish and another Mennonite. Originally, there were no Mennonites or Amish; there were only Anabaptists. Anabaptists are also the spiritual ancestor of Baptists and Quakers. I was raised Baptist - that's probably why I have such an affinity for Mennonites. In sixteenth-century Holland (that means the 1500s), a man named Menno Simons joined the Anabaptists and became prominent among them. About a century after Simons, a Swiss Anabaptist named Jacob Ammon began to preach that the Anabaptists were not following their founding principles closely enough, and the followers of his ideas became known as Amish and separated from the other Anabaptists. The remaining Anabaptists became known as Mennonites after Menno Simons. The people you see in Belize are followers of Menno Simons - they are Mennonites - and some live with modern things like cars and phones, while some live much more simply and without mechanical or electrical technoogy. The Wikipedia entry about Mennonites in Belize gives a great description of just how diverse the Mennonites are there.

We were back at the hotel before dark, inspired but tired. What a day. What an experience. I told all at the staff what we had just done: we went to Caracol by motorcycles and on the way out, I saw a jaguar. I wanted to tell THE WORLD. So many Belizeans told me that it was an honor to see such, that they had never seen such. And I felt humbled. Although one of the Midas receptionists HAS seen a jaguar and we got all excited talking about how that yellow is SO BRIGHT and yet not at all a sunny yellow - it's an orange-ish yellow.

There was, however, a casualty that day: Stefan's hiking boots. Stefan had rarely worn those boots, as you can see from the almost perfect treads. But they are about 20 years old. And they were now about to come completely apart in the heels. We were horrified. He used zip ties to repair them temporarily, but how long would THAT last? Yikes!

I kept making jokes about a guy who had derided our trip beforehand. He'd said he had heard it was very flat and warned, "Don't expect fun roads for bikes!" Wow, he was so, so wrong.

I checked in via WhatsApp with Elmer, the guide I had booked for Tikal when I was back in the USA, and then asked the Midas staff what time she thought we should head to the border. She said there wasn't a need to book a cab in advance - just come up front about 30 minutes before we were ready to leave and she would call someone, and she told us the price. And Midas oh-so-generously allowed us to keep my bag, our pants, our jackets and our helmets there. In fact, we kept them all neatly stacked in the corner of our room, in case they needed to rent the room the night we were gone and needed to move our stuff elsewhere. I just really cannot say enough sweet things about the staff there.

Stefan also had a new proposal: why stay at Midas two more nights after we got back from Tikal? Why not just one night, and then stay a night at Warrie Head? I'd been talking about how much I'd love to stay there just one night. The price wasn't much more than Midas. We could go to the Mayan sites of Xunantunich and Cahal Pech, sleep at Warrie Head that night after those visits, and then head North to Lamanai the next day. I thought it was a great idea, so I booked a room online, directly on the site.  

We swam in the pool that night after our very intense day. I looked up at the stars as I floated, and thought about the Mayans of those earlier days looking up at these stars. I thought about how lucky I am. I thought about what an incredible person Stefan is and how grateful I am to have him in my life. I thought about how I wish everyone loved history this much, so much they wanted to preserve it and share it respectfully. I thought about how this trip was already everything I wanted it to be.

And we weren't even half done. 

Part 4 of our trip: Guatemala and Tikal (sans motorcycles).

You can see my favorite photos from our trip here (there are about 500 and most are taken by me or feature ME). You can see Stefan's favorite photos from the trip here (there are about 800 and most are taken by him or feature him).

Return to the main page for our Belize and Guatemala 2023 Adventure.

 
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