Day 14 – San Ignacio, Belize

February 17, 2019

We woke up early and booked a tour to the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) caves.  National Geographic voted it the most sacred cave in the world.  This was a place the Mayans would come to make sacrifices to the rain god.  They started with food sacrifices and there were many pottery artifacts in the cave.  When the food sacrifices did not bring the rain, they progressed to blood-letting and then to human sacrifice.  This tour was described as an “Indiana Jones” type tour and it most certainly was.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any photos on this trip as in the past people had dropped cameras and lenses on some of the skeletons damaging them.  Right out of the parking lot we had to cross a river that was neck deep.  We were instructed to wear tennis shoes that you expect to get wet.  After crossing the river we walked through the woods where we crossed the river 2 more times in areas that were not as deep.  Once we made it to the entrance of the cave we had to swim in.  This was a bit scary for both Taylor and I as we were swimming in water where we couldn’t see what was around us into a dark cave with just our headlamps.  We spent about 3 hours going deep into the cave.  Most of it was in water either ankle, knee, waist, or neck high.  There was a lot of crawling and scrambling over rocks and boulders to get further back into the cave where you could see the artifacts and human skeletons from where the Mayan’s made sacrifices.  There were two points where we had to squeeze through two rocks with our shoulders underneath water and an opening just wide enough to get our necks through.  It was a really fun experience and one of my favorite days so far.  After we got home and cleaned up, we headed out and found some awesome street burritos.  Each burrito was only $1.25 so Brendan and I ate dinner for $2.50.  We also checked out a local happening night club but were just there for a little bit.  We met some new friends who were from Argentina and got some drinks with them and hung out in a local park to end our night before heading back to our bunks.