Belize: Caracol's Mayan temples

[Mike Buckley]

Though Caracol is Belize's most important Mayan archaeological site, relatively few people visit it. That's because it is about a 2-hour drive from most places where tourists stay and because those two hours are spent mostly on a bumpy dirt road. There is also the deal breaker for some people that the safest way to enter the area is to join a military-escorted convoy that departs at 9:30am for nearly the last half of that bumpy drive. Prior to implementing the armed escort, bandits would stop autos and take tourists' money and belongings.

The color photos were captured by my wife and post-processed by me.


Photo #1



Photo #2
This temple has yet another higher tier not displayed in the image because it can't be seen from the ground level.



Photo #3



Photo #4
My guess is that the two wooden posts are goals lacking the net for soccer (football) games played by the archaeologists.



Photo #5

[mugge]

Mike, great photos. I looked up Caracol. Very interesting to say the least. You will have to do a lot of work however. I believe the site is 200 km square. I will be very interested if in fact you will be allowed to continue on this particular site.
Cheers Ole

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Ole. The site's only restrictions had to do with being unable to climb certain pyramids due to safety issues. Otherwise, we had full access to the entire site. We saw all of the excavated and semi-excavated stuff in the 3 1/2 hours we were there. If you enter it using the convoy, that's the maximum amount of time visitors are allowed. The rest of the official site that we didn't see seems to be jungle.

[Wavelength]

Excellent images !!!

[Rainforest]

Impressive site and worth the trip it looks like, very nice series!

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you also to Susan and Nandakumar!