Epic Travel → Central and South America → Belize → Xunantunich

Location: Cayo District, Western Belize

Time Required: 3 hours – half a day

Red Tape/Notes: Reached by ferry daily from 8am – 5pm. Admission is $10 for foreign tourists.

What’s Nearby?: Horseback Riding

Xunantunich packs a lot of bang for its buck (or time, really) – it’s quite fun to reach the site because you have to cross the Mopan River on a “ferry” that’s more of a moving bridge operated by a hand crank. It’s also right outside of San Ignacio and very easy to reach (unlike places like Caracol that require a major investment in travel time); we opted to ride here on horses from a nearby farm, but you could obviously do the normal thing and drive. Once you’re at the site, it doesn’t take all that long to explore, because although it served as a civic ceremonial center for the Maya and housed a substantial population, the core of the site occupies only about one square mile. That area is densely packed with 6 plazas and more than 26 temples and palaces, the best known of which is called “El Castillo”, and has some notable friezes preserved/restored on the upper walls of the structure – there were originally friezes on all of the walls, but the majority were eroded or covered up, but what remains today is still impressive. Like many Maya sites, there are still excavations ongoing here, and in July of 2016 an untouched (!!) burial tomb was discovered, including the original occupant along with burial goods like ceramic vessels, obsidian knives, jade pearls, and animal bones  – this is very rare, as virtually all tombs found at large sites have been looted.

Epic Travel → Central and South America → Belize → Xunantunich