Belize 6: Leaving Belize

Jul 26, 2006 18:44

Today was my last day in Belize; tomorrow I'm on a noon flight out of Belize city. I didn't do anything too impressive today- went up to the Iguana conservation project at the San Ignacio Hotel, and spend some time at the pool. I was to broke to do anything impressive, and too tired to do anything strenuous. That's because I went spelunking yesterday.

I went on a trip to Actun Tunichil Muknal, a large cave used by the Maya in their rituals. I have never done any serious caving before, so I went in with no real expectations. I was completely amazed. The cave is a 45 minute hike away from the nearest (unpaved) road. The path is overgrown and crosses a waist-deep river three times. The cave itself is flooded; only the main ritual chamber is dry. I'm not certain whether the river passes through the cave, or begins in it. There are places where you have to swim.

It took us about 2 hours to get to the main ritual chamber, which is a little less than half a mile inside the cave. The cave is more than 7 miles deep, and most of the rest is underwater, or so inaccessible that it was only explored the couple of times required to map it. Tourists don't go that way.

ATM is a beautiful, living cave. There are flowstones, stalactites and stalagmites in many of the main chambers along the way. There are places where you have to crawl or climb or swim to get through. We spent most of the trip with no light except for our headlamps. The water is cold and fast-flowing; the rocks are slippery.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed caving. It was a very religious experience- Persephone and Hades are underworld gods, if from a different part of the world, and I felt the connection very strongly. There was also the element of physically descending into the womb of Mother Earth. And it was also damned sexy. Wet slippery rocks all twisted up into interesting shapes. . . yeah.

I want to go caving again :-)

Another part of the ATM tour is archaeological- it's a major Maya ritual site. The artifacts and skeletons were left in situ after they were studied, partly because they were calcified to the cave floor and too fragile to be safely removed. The Maya apparently believed that this cave was an entrance to their underworld, and sacred to the god of thunder. The dry chamber has hundreds of artifacts- mostly pottery vessels, some stones for grinding corn. The vessels were used to contain offerings to the god, to collect the holy water dripping off of the stones, or to hold blood from sacrificial cutting rituals.

There are also the remains of 14 sacrificial victims. 7 of them are adults and were believed to be volunteers. 7 were children, including two infants, and a few of these were tied. Most were killed by a blow to the head. In the deepest part of the ritual chamber is the most recent skeleton. It is believed to be that of a young woman, who was strangled. She died only a few years before the Maya civilization in the area collapsed.

Our guide, a mestizo, told us a bit about Maya history during the tour. At the height of their civilization, there were one million Maya living in Belize- that's four times the current population of the country. The leading theory at the moment is that their civilization collapsed in 900 CE because of a century-long drought caused partially by deforestation. There is evidence of warfare between the various city-states and internal revolts during the period as well. But unlike many of the great ancient Amerindian civilizations, the Maya didn't disappear completely. There are still Mayan villages in Belize and the surrounding countries.

Again, I took no pictures. I was afraid to take my borrowed camera on a hard trek through the jungle and a wet cave. It's ironic that I don't have any pictures of the most amazing things that I did here. But, at the same time, it's kind of in keeping with my philosophy. I don't do the things I do so I can have pictures of them to show other people. I do it for the experience and I've found that, sometimes, having a camera with you can damage the experience. I find myself looking *for* things to take pictures of, rather than looking *at* things. The things that make the best pictures aren't always the best parts of a trip, but the pictures can skew your memory so that photographed events seem more significant than they actually are. So I don't really regret leaving the camera behind for the best parts of the trip.

Anyway, I'm hoping to spend some of tonight hanging out with the Cornerstone folks one more time, and then get up horrendously early for the long bus trip to Belize city and the airport. I've got a long layover in Miami Airport, and I'll probably be making lots of phone calls then. I never did manage to make a call from Belize- I tried several times, and never got it to work. I'll be in Baltimore with exedore for a day to see Dog Sees God, then up to TH for Lammas, then back to DC to pick up the cat and home to Norfolk. Class starts on the 14th. So much to do before then.

belize, life

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