Indiana Jones style Caving

For serious, google the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) Caves. We managed to go on a trip there, from San Ignacio, Belize. After a 1 hour bus ride in a classic Chicken Bus (old American school bus), we then trekked through the jungle for 45 minutes, had some lunch and went in. Think swimming to get to the entrance, much clambering, climbing, squeezing through rocks, wading through water. Very Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

Eventually we climbed a ladder (put in place by archaeologists) and viewed a lot of Mayan pots. More wandering through the huge chamber led to human skeletons, from approximately 1200 years ago. These were human sacrifices, whether willing or not, we're not sure. You could see the holes in the skulls of some of them, which was the presumed method of death. Absolutely incredible.

If you do happen to go to Belize, highly recommended. Apparently they could close it down in a few years, which I can see why. It's not exactly the most protected of areas, in that the pots were merely surrounded by red tape. Being a rather clumsy girl, I was pretty terrified I'd stumble and break some of it, therefore ruining a priceless relic. Luckily, we left the cave accident free. Admittedly, we're now both in severe leg pain (loads of climbing) and there were times when both Milla and Claire cursed their height / Milla's slightly shorter limbs made climbing a little more tricky, whereas I struggled with some of the clambering through rocks.


Moving on from San Ignacio, we headed to the border with Guatemala. Just on the Belize side, we needed to change money. As it was about to start raining, we huddled under a little tin shack to sort it out. As the heavens opened, we realised that the football was on and being watched. So we watched the whole of the first half of the England-Algeria game in a little tin shack, on the Belizean border with the local money-changers and taxi drivers. We reckon they loved it. We decided not to waste our time watching the second half (a good decision in the end, given the result) and sped on through the Guatemalan border, paying a probably unofficial entry tax of $3. No great loss, we suppose.