Palace in the Sky

We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and ‘X’ never, ever, marks the spot.

-Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

A fog of uncertainty shrouded my mind as Vince turned our rental car off of a smoothly paved highway, and onto a bumpy, dirt road. We were attempting to visit another Mayan ruin, our second one in as many days, but we had been given mixed opinions about whether or not our two-wheel drive rental Jeep would be up to the task of getting there. The archeological site of Caracol is located at the end of a hilly, unpaved road an hour’s drive from the nearest highway, and we were embarking on an attempt to reach it.

There are easier to reach Mayan sites throughout Belize. Cahal Pech or Xunantunich for instance, are both accessible from San Ignacio, the former sitting on a hilltop right in the middle of the city. But when I was doing my research while planning this trip, there was something irresistibly alluring about Caracol. I’d be lying if I said its somewhat dubious accessibility had nothing to do with it. The remote location brought with it a sense of adventure, and the risk of failure somehow made the endeavor all the more enticing. There was more than a bit of skepticism rippling through our group of four (particularly from Vince, who was stuck doing the driving) as everyone begrudgingly agreed it was worth a try. I tried to sound confident that we would make it, pointing out that every blog post I’d read on the subject had said the road was basically fine. Inside though, I hoped I wasn’t wasting everyone’s time on a doomed mission.

The sun shined brightly that morning, reflecting off of rolling, green mountains, and soothing the fluttering nerves in my stomach. Every bumpy hill we successfully crested was a small win and soon I was leaning over to gaze out of my window at the most inviting landscape we’d seen in Belize so far. Verdant valleys slept in the shadows of palm-covered mountains, whose summits were bathed in near-heavenly light. Butterflies wafted to and fro around the car, and when I rolled down my window, the air that kissed my cheeks smelled wet and green. It was all too beautiful to bear being closed up in a car, so when we came to an area with a wide shoulder of freshly bulldozed soil, I asked Vince to pull over.

I had my door open and one foot on its way to the ground before we even came to a complete stop. I tread across the soft earth until I reached its edge, and then stood and stared out across the landscape, taking deep breaths of muggy air. It was perfect.

Suddenly I felt sure that we were going to have an amazing day, and as we got back on the road, it became clear that we would have no problems driving over the terrain. We made a few more stops along the way to get out and admire the scenery in between slowly crawling the Jeep up steep hills. Eventually, we drove underneath an entrance gate that read “Caracol Archaeological Park.”

We had made such good time that we were actually a few minutes early. No one had arrived at the entrance desk yet so we used the time to slather on sunscreen, and fill our day packs with water bottles. By the time we were ready, an attendant had opened up the front office, so we paid for entrance tickets, signed the guestbook, and then set off down a trail that led into the jungle.

The morning’s adventurous drive had put us in a good mood, and there was a palpable feeling of exploration as we entered the forest. Along the path we discovered interesting plants and insects, and Mayan structures with huge buttressed trees growing on top of them. The stacked stones had been claimed by the forest long ago, and with no other visitors in sight, we could almost fool ourselves into imagining we were the first humans to see this place in centuries.

I was busy photographing tree roots when the others called me over to a small clearing that was bordered by tall, fruiting trees. The highest branches of one tree were rustling in a way that can only mean there’s an animal in them. My eyes followed the tall trunk upward until I spotted the culprit, a collared aracari. Then I noticed that there were a few more of the charming, tiny toucans eating berries from the tree’s branches. A shrill, bugling whistling sounded from a tree on the other side of the clearing, indicating the presence of another unique bird, an oropendola.

I didn’t get as good of photos of either type of bird as I would have liked, but I still enjoyed watching them jumping around in the trees. I have a major soft-spot for toucans and other birds with improbably large beaks. They somehow look simultaneously wrong, like their bodies shouldn’t be able to stay balanced with such a long bill as a counterweight, and also charismatically cartoonish.

It took the the guys a long time to pry me and Bonnie away from this bird sighting, but they finally managed to coax us into continuing along the trail, and it wasn’t long before we stepped out from the cover of the rainforest and into the shadow of an utterly gargantuan pyramid. Once again I had the alluring feeling of an explorer stumbling upon a discovery. No sounds echoed through the air save for our own gasps of awe and the incessant humming of cicadas. We were the only human beings standing at the foot of what was (in my opinion) the most impressive ancient Mayan structure I’d ever seen.

Naturally, we immediately undertook the endeavor of climbing it. I must admit, my legs were beginning to feel like jello now that it was our second consecutive day of climbing up knee-high stairs, but the adventure of the climb far outweighed the pain in my complaining quadriceps. I didn’t know it at the time, but we were scaling the tallest manmade structure in Belize, and in hindsight, it definitely felt like it.

Caana, or Sky palace, rises 141 feet out of the jungle and into the sky, and standing right at its base, we couldn’t actually see the top. We thought we had reached the end when we crested the summit of one pyramid step, only to look up and realize there was another tier still above us. and when we got to the top of that layer, we were surprised to find ourselves in the same situation yet again. Sweat poured from my body, and my legs ached, but I didn’t care because I was dying to see how high the pyramid went.

After what felt like an eternity of climbing, we finally stepped onto a grassy lawn atop the final tier of the pyramid. Caana contains four palaces and three temples, and three of those structures now stood in front of us, the final obstacle to the reach the summit.

We made one last push to the top of the middle structure and then turned around to see the rainforest spreading out in front of us. My legs quivered, but I couldn’t feel their pain. All I could focus on was the triumphant view below my feet. I felt like I really was floating in the sky, completely disconnected from the earth.

None of us were eager to abandon our hard-won vantage point, so we stayed up there for a long time. Somewhat shockingly, another group of tourists eventually emerged onto the top tier, reminding us that we weren’t in the fact the only humans on the planet. But they started their descent within a few minutes, leaving us alone with the cicadas once again. We eventually did embark on the downclimb back to earth, stopping along the way to clap at the pyramid so we could hear the sound echoed back us like the sound of a laser gun.

Back on the ground, we got back to the business of exploration, following another trail until we discovered more ancient structures. At this point, I would have been happy to never see another staircase for the rest of my life, but it isn’t everyday you get an entire ancient Mayan city all to yourself, so I sacrificed my quads in the name of adventure.

We climbed up a few more structures, found a tree full of oropendola nests, and even met a random, stray dog at the top of a pyramid. Although there was certainly still more to of Caracol to find hidden in the jungle, we eventually had to concede that it was time to get back on the road. We’d already stayed much later than planned, and we still had three more items on our day’s itinerary. Begrudgingly, we hiked back to the park’s entrance where we had an unexpected send-off of a flurry of butterflies all gathered around a damp area on the ground, a truly beautiful ending to a perfect morning.

Back on the road, we retraced our drive all the way back to the highway, which was conveniently located within our next destination, Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve. There was no need to wonder how the reserve had gotten its name. It sits atop a mountain that is blanketed in pine forest rather than the tropical rainforest that engulfs everything else around us. The tall pines felt unexpected in comparison to the other landscapes we’d encountered in Belize, and put me to mind of the northern forests that are my home. A quick check of the air by rolling down the window revealed that we were definitely still in hot, humid Central America though.

Vince steered the Jeep down a dirt road that was noticeably worse than the road to Caracol that we’d been warned about, parking at the bottom of a steep hill. We got out of the car and started walking, and within a couple of minutes, we were approaching the gaping mouth of Rio Frio Cave, one of the most well-known points of interest in Mountain Pine Ridge. Despite the cave’s apparent popularity, as evidenced by a stampede of footprints on the sandy trail that led to it, we once again were completely alone.

Total silence greeted us as we stepping into the dark mouth of the cave and let our eyes adjust to the dim lighting. Rio frio would be the first of several caves we would visit over the next few days. Each one would be unique in some way, and Rio Frio stood out because its large, picturesque entrance and exit were within sight of each other. I lifted my camera to my eye and started snapping photos, and by the time I’d turned back around, Vince, Bonnie, and David had vanished. Later I found them swimming in the river that ran through the cave, but I opted to stay dry and keep taking pictures.

Rio Frio cave was stunning, but after a while, it was my turn to pry everyone else away from something. There were still two swimming holes left on the itinerary, and I had a feeling we were all going to like them a bit better than swimming in stagnant cave water.

Back at the car, I changed into my bathing suit because I would definitely be joining in swimming at the next stop. Then we got back into the Jeep, and drove the short distance to Rio On Pools. I opted to leave my Canon behind this time and only bring my GoPro. A short hike downhill brought us to a rocky riverbed where we were shocked to find other people. By this point, I was starting to wonder why there seemed to be no one else anywhere we went, so it was both surprising and also strangely comforting to see other people out having fun.

We didn’t waste any time in dropping our towels off on a dry rock and jumping into the pleasantly cool water of the river. The stone riverbed at Rio On Pools has been carved into a series of natural swimming pools and waterslides, with waterfalls cascading over boulders. After a day spent sweating in the beating sun, the water felt like a welcome embrace, washing the sweat and grime from my skin, and giving me a boost of energy I hadn’t noticed I’d been lacking.

The dramatic rocky landscape of the river begged for exploration. Over and over again we would swim from one pool to the next, slide down a shallow chute, then scramble to the top of a boulder, only to find another beautiful spot to go check out.  In this manner, we slowly made our way downstream, until we found a pool that was deep enough for cliff jumping. We jumped into the pool from a tall rock several times before I pointed out that we should probably start making our way back upriver. The sun was hanging low in the sky, and we still had one more stop to make before the park closed at dark.

A combination of swimming, climbing, and hopping from boulder to boulder got us back to the trail where the crowd of bathers had thinned dramatically. We hiked back up to the Jeep, leaving our bathing suits on for the short drive to our final stop of the day, Big Rock Falls. Minutes later we were descending a ramshackle staircase through the pine forest. I tried not to think about how we would have to climb back up that staircase again (my legs were still suffering from all of the Mayan architecture) as we stepped out onto another rocky embankment.

Unlike Rio On Pools, the landscape at Big Rock Falls had one clear focal point. A 150 foot tall pillar of water that cascades from a dramatic clifftop.

Ditching our towels once again, we jumped into the large expanse of water that stood between us and the waterfall, and started swimming. A barrier of rocks separated us from the falls, but we crawled over them and plunged into another deep pool that was just below the pounding water.

This pool ended up being a more exciting spot for cliff jumping. Too exciting (aka too tall) for me, but I was happy watching the others jump from a tall cliff, silhouetted in front of the dramatic waterfall.

I wanted to swim up underneath the waterfall, but my first attempt failed because the current was so strong that I just was swept backward by the rushing water. Vince managed to figure out a method to get through the current that involved gracefully flopping himself onto a rock, and wiggling forward on his stomach. It seemed to work, so I followed him up, and soon I was underneath the falls with a deluge of water droplets clouding my vision.

We floated in the pool below the falls until the sun sank low enough that we knew we’d need all of the remaining daylight to hike back to the Jeep. Dusk was falling as we reached the parking lot, where we threw on dry clothes for the drive back to the Mariposa Jungle Lodge. I felt satisfyingly worn out all the way back to the lodge. We had certainly managed to fill the day with a lot if excitement, and that trend would continue the following day. We may have gotten a taste of underground adventure at Rio Frio Cave, but our tour the next morning would take us deeper into the earth on an action-packed excursion with a surprising twist!