February 18, 2019
At the hostel we met another Brendan from Portland, Oregon! He and another traveler (Natalie from Germany) were renting a car to go out to another Mayan ruin site, Caracol. We also wanted to go to Caracol but the price of tours was too expensive for our budget. They offered for us to tag along with them and just split the cost of the rental car. This turned out to be an amazing day and an awesome way for us to explore Caracol. The road to get there was insanely bumpy and slow going. We went about 40 miles into the jungle to reach the site but it took about 3 hours to get there because of the condition of the road. We were in a small car and it was quite a long ride for Brendan, Taylor and I crammed into the backseat. It was TOTALLY worth it though, we quickly realized once we got there. Since we didn’t go with a guided tour by the time we got there most people were leaving so we had the place to ourselves!
The three of us climbed our first pyramid and actually climbed five of them by the end of the day. One of them was the tallest structure in modern day Belize so that was pretty cool. The views were awesome and we spent the afternoon exploring the site and climbing the pyramids. We climbed one and got super close to some howler monkeys which was really cool.
On our way back a shock broke on the car.
We were thankful to have Brendan who knew exactly what it was, and assured us it was okay to continue driving. Since we didn’t have any tools we had to just drag the shock until it finally broke off. We did stop at Rio Pools on our way back which was a great place to spend sunset.
Watching the sunset in the jungle was an amazing experience. It was also the night before the full, super moon of 2019 so the moon was incredible. After it became dark, the drive seemed like an eternity. We stopped and turned off the car at one point so we could listen to the sounds of the jungle at night. When Natalie, who was driving tried to turn it back on, it would not start up and the check engine light came on. I think for two seconds we all had a major internal freak-out moment at the thought of being stranded out in the jungle overnight in the car. After our stomachs dropped and I got a lump in my throat, the car thankfully turned over and we were back on our way. We had to go even slower due to visibility and it was one long ride for sure. We made it back safe and sound though and had a fantastic day. Exhausted from a really active day we got some burritos from the street vendor and went to bed.