Xunantunich and Actun Tunichil Muknal

I started to feel hungover on the bus to Belmopan. I put my head down against the brown vinyl seat in front of me the entire way. When we arrived at the Belmopan station I jumped right into the next bus about to leave for San Ignacio. I tried to pay and realized I was giving the man a very thin worn taped Belize two dollars and he said, “what is this?”. I told him that it was the change someone in Dangriga gave me and he said I’d have to give him something else. It was the change that Kendra gave and I’ll bet she gave it to me on purpose, knowing full well that it was a useless two dollar bill. I guess she probably pocketed the two dollar bill she should of gave me and instead gave me a piece of trash money. After awhile I thought it was pretty cute though, all the little ways that she or her friends would try to get things outta me or short me or hustle me. This was so common in Belize. They were still nice people, but they took what they could get to get by.

I arrived in San Ignacio — gritty place; small city, or, big town; less hollering at friends and commradery on the streets, less so than say Dangriga or Orange Walk; much less creole. San Ignacio itself didn’t invite me to stay longer than I had to to visit the few sites close by — Mayan burial caves, ruins, etc.

I asked a creole man who looked like he probably sold drugs and could get me guns, prostitutes, etc; named ICEMAN where to find such and such street and he walked me over to it. I wondered if he was going ask me for money after showing me the street to my hostel but along the way he said he didn’t care about money only making friends.

My head still feeling shitty from the two beers in the bar morning which kicked a very mild hangover into something less manageable, I dropped my things and sought out food and coconut water for the vitamins. I bought cigarettes and sat on a sidewalk watching the life go by, something I like to do in all the bustling cities that I visit. I finished the night drinking three beers at the hostel anyway with new friends — Jamie from New Zealand (who reminded me strongly of my friend Jason back home, the way he talked and moved his eyes, his energy and even similar facial features and body type; quite the doppelgänger) and his sweet girl Krissie from Germany — smoking too many cigarettes; smoking weed, passed the joint by an old thin Creole man and took slight hits so as not to get too high but to feel good. It made my headache go away and I slept well and the next morning I woke up feeling fresh and fine.

Headed out to the Xunantunich ruins in San Jose Succotz the next morning with Jamie and Krissie. Sweating in the sun as Jamie tried to negotiate taxi fares; the whole time I figured we should catch the next bus for $1.50 Belize (where as taxis were charging us three times that price, each) and that’s exactly what we ended up doing (though I get the feeling, and much like Jason, Jamie got some sort of kicks haggling with taxi drivers when it was almost clear he wasn’t going to take one; he believed he might take one though and wanted to see what kind of deals he could strike). Caught a bus from the city center, hopped off and crossed a river on a handcranked ferry; walked a mile up a dirt road hill in the jungle taking small drags off a joint that Jamie brought; sweating immediately, my tattoo covered up in a red bandana.

Xunantunich — El Castillo — the first thing we laid our eyes on. Beautiful tall sight. Ahhhh, ruins again. My first ruins since last year’s Mexico. They weren’t as impressive as say Palenque or Tulum but of course it was a feast to be back in the ancient weathered Mayan stone palaces. We walked all over, our peepers staring, feasting; climbed El Castillo, 130 feet; iguanas sun bathing, my first time seeing a monkey in the wild, spider monkey; talked with two Belizean army men with machine guns at the top, nice guys enjoying the day, with us, as we sat and stared out below and had our own private thoughts about what the place was like when it was alive, talked about it; Jamie snapping photos galore. We had the first rain of my Central American trip. It came down somewhat hard for an hour while we waited in the museum. We left as the sun started to come out and smoked a joint on the walk back down the hill, smelling the after rain smell, the new after rain smell that I’ve never smelled, the after rain jungle smell, earth and spices; crossed the river on the handcranked ferry, caught a school bus back into town, an actual school bus filled with school children who stared at us.

Before we caught the bus for Xunantunich we sat talking to a tour operator named Rudy from Hun Chi’ik tours. We sat talking to him for almost an hour while he waited. He was a short fierce muscular little Belizean, almost had a type of weasel face; but he wasn’t weasley at all; as I said he had a fierce look in his eyes and he even said, “what goes around comes around. I don’t fuck with no one man, I’m a good guy. But if you fuck with me, you’re fucking with the devil”. Anyway, you could tell he was a good guy and when we returned from the Xunantunich ruins, back at the hostel and I laid on my bed going over the pros and cons of spending the money for the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave tour, $80 US, a cave tour that I had been debating on taking since I arrived in San Ignacio when finally I shot up out of bed with a decision and knocked on Jamie and Krissie’s room door. Krissie said to come in, which I did and she’s sitting on her bed with her floral blouse unbuttoned, her breast full and exposed, though with bra on, and I had to avert my eyes immediately; I let her know that I made my decision, and no pressure but if they were going to take the cave tour they should do it before the end of the day. Jamie popped his wet shower head out of the restroom door and I told him the same thing I told Krissie. With that I closed their door and walked down the busy streets to Rudy’s little office and booked myself a tour.

I walked back to the hostel and finished the night drinking a few Guiness beers, getting high, playing Kings and Assholes. I was on such a great level high that I went downstairs and cut open a bunch of pink grapefruits I bought at the outdoor market; grabbed a banana, brought it all back up to the table and had everyone filling their stoned mouths with that sweet tart citrus juice and smiling.

The next morning, the morning of the cave tour, I rode in a truck with two girls from Georgia; one which I thought was the butch of the (what I then thought, but later found out they weren’t lesbians) lesbian couple; and one delicate and feminine and cute, and they were the only other two people on the tour. I mostly chatted with Amanda, the less feminine one, throughout the car ride. They weren’t backpackers. They weren’t lesbians. They were hungover. They worked as some sort of Arabic translators for the Navy or Army or something like that. They were on a little vacation in Belize for a week or two and just at the tail end of it. The more feminine was named Ashley (though I might have their names backward). She was quiet. A thin girl, 28, with a light complexion and curly brown hair braided into a pony tail and big brown eyes and nice skin. Almost a Natalie Portman type. By the end of the trip it was me and her talking the most.

Our guide was a 38 year old short stout Mayan, Lebanese, mixed guy (looked more Lebanese) named Edward who was very strange to talk with. He spoke slow and had a softness in his voice, sometimes like he was telling a mysterious story, like a mystic; or the way you lower and soften your voice when you’re telling a kid a scary story. His eye and mind seemed to be a separate thing from the person who was talking. For example the way he would look at my hat and tattoo and shift his eyes over to one of the girls and look them over and read them (flirting with them in his creepy way and grabbing only Ashley’s hand to help her during the hard parts of the cave) as he was talking all about the jungle, it was like his body and mouth were already trained to move and speak while his mind and eyes lived their own separate life at the same time. He was like two people. I don’t know, it’s really weird and weird to explain.

We walked through the jungle for 45 minutes to reach the cave entrance; crossed the river a few times; ate some termites that tasted like carrot; heard the bone chilling roar of howler monkeys in the distance; walked in the rain and finally reached Actun Tunichil Muknal: The Cave of the Crystal Sepulchre: Xibalba — the slippery stone steps leading down to the almost bright, yet opaque, blue pool of cool water leading into the mouth of the cave, we walked down them with our hardhats fixed with headlamps and jumped in. Ooooh the water was cool, cenote cool. There were tiny fish swimming in it. We had to swim through the first twenty feet of the cave entrance to get to a point where we could stand on the rocks beneath the water.

It was a three hour tour up and back, through ankle, knee, waist and chest high water; among sparkling milkbuttery stalactites and stalagmites; squeezing through crevices barely wide enough to fit through; climbing over rocks and crouching beneath them; beneath bats which hung upside down or flitted about any time our lights bothered them; darkness outside of the four headlamps illuminating the path in front of us; the sound of water flowing; into huge wide open cathedral like chambers, the formations forming silhouettes of ancient Mayan priests and old ladies against the wall when our lamps shone on them; lights out and it’s pitch black, the darkest black I’ve ever seen, you close your eyes you open your eyes and it isn’t any different and they never adapt to the darkness, you can’t see your hand right in front of your face and no matter how hard you try, how hard you stretch those pupils you never see light, shapes, forms, only darkness. That’s Xibalba, the Mayan portal to the underworld.

We pushed on to the finale where we took off our shoes and walked and climbed through the dry part of the cave barefoot, looking at shards of pottery and human bones, skulls; offerings and sacrifices; and the finally to the final resting place of a complete skeleton, the crystal maiden, a young girl calcified into the cave floor. The IDEA of the sacrifices and the offerings, the idea that Mayan high priests held court in that cave with flickering torches and chants and rituals and hallucinogens was bigger to me than actually seeing the artifacts and bones.

We left the way we came, me behind Ashley almost the entire way, her little waist and wet thin cream colored pants that revealed the panties underneath and clung so tight to her butt; her cold goosebumps shivering and poor balance that had me so badly wanting to help her and put my arms around her waist and pick her up over the hard parts (no different than creepy Edward I guess huh — though toward the end she was talking quite a bit to me, nice girl anyway). We swam out of the mouth of the cave much quicker than it took us to complete the journey in. We walked the jungle trail back to the parking lot and ate a simple meal (tortilla, deli slices, cheese, bell pepper, tomato, chili, chips) along with rum punch.

Back at the hostel, exhausted, at night time, I finished the night once again drinking and getting high playing cards (and I got a bit too high this time; though not too high that when this black Canadian guy Jamique that we’d been chumming with brought back a plate of stewed chicken rice and beans, I went out and bought a plate of my own, not even hungry either I just wanted the flavors). The next morning was the last I’d see of my good friends Jamie and Krissie until Flores Guatemala.