Altun Ha Mayan City, Belize

Belize was our only tendered port of the cruise. Due to the reef surrounding the country, we actually anchored five miles out to sea and got a large speedboat to the city. However, none of that happened quickly as the immigration officials were apparently rather late arriving at the ship to clear us...so we sat and waited in the ship's theatre, tour tickets in hand, to be cleared to go ashore.

On land, we battled the queues of cruise ship passengers for our own tour - a trip to the Mayan City of Altun Ha. We went back and forth on what to do in Belize, especially with it being famed for snorkelling. Having snorkelled in Roatan however, we took the decision to take the shortest of the tours to a Mayan ruin (the other tours were 7 hours). The coach took us on a guided tour of modern Belize City from our seats, before the hour journey to Altun Ha with an excellent and very knowledgable guide. The whole tour was a little more than four hours meaning we could also have the afternoon to ourselves in the city.

At the Mayan site, the sun came out from behind the clouds and the temperature soared - great for photos, not so good for climbing up Mayan temples! Our guide was excellent, explaining the discovery and recovery of the site. In the millennia since the temples were built, nature reclaimed the buildings meaning some sites really can't be recovered as the roots are the only thing holding the temples together. We were able to climb the Temple of the Green Tomb and Temple of the Sun God to get amazing views over the site and the surrounding rainforest. The Tenple of the Sun God is nearly 60ft high and is the site where the jade head was found; this Belizean national treasure is a solid sphere of jade about 6" tall carved into a head, valued between $5-10 million and kept in the vaults of the Belize Central Bank. The guide also demonstrated how the temples were built to amplify sound in the plazas below the temples to allow rulers to speak to the assembled masses.Read more