We arrived at our eco-resort the Maya Mountain Lodge and checked into our bungalow a slightly musty hut with two rooms and settled in for several days of exploring the Maya interior and ramping up school. I went exploring the downtown area to get my bearings of the area and got scolded by several traffic officers apparently I tried to cross the one way bridges the wrong way. In my defense they have zero traffic signs so how am I supposed to know???
We completed school the next day and took a swim in the very cold pool, burrrrr. We explored the local Maya site in the afternoon called Xunantunich (pronounced shunantunch). It was our first big Maya site at it was very impressive. It was built on a hill adjacent to the Mopan River, there is one major temple that dominates the site and some huge plazas that allows you to gaze at the temples and feel very insignificant. The Mayan constructed their temples so the tops of the temples would appear just above the top of the jungle canopy likely to allow them to worship the sun, one of their many gods. We climbed the largest temple which was a bit scary running after the kids climbing up steep inclines. There was also a nicely preserved ball court, shaped in map view like an “I” with parallel sloping sides. This is the only ball court that has been discovered in Belize with vertical hoop goals perched at the top of the walls.
Travel-Trotter 