Belize 2003

Caracol

Sunday March 23

The drive to Caracol took about 2 1/4 hours over rather rough roads, especially the last ½ hour. At one point a very stubborn horse felt he owned the road, faced his butt to us and stood his ground, until the van bumped him gently a couple of times. Just before the last ½ hour we stopped on the Guacamayo bridge over the Mecal River, just downstream from where the new dam is proposed. All the guides we met during the trip were opposed to the dam which is supported by the Blue party, the current party in power, and is to be built by Fortis, a Canadian company.



Caracol is a big site, possibly larger than Tikal, but is only now being extensively dug. Caracol was a major city which defeated Tikal but collapsed in the overall collapse of the Maya civilization ~800-900AD.



We were able to see the consolidation and restoration work as well as some fiberglass replicas of some stellae and friezes (the originals of the friezes are about 1 m. behind the replica to preserve it).



We also saw one original which was in the process of being copied in clay, from which a latex mould would be made and in time a fiberglass replica.

The replica friezes were well done, looking aged and covered with grit and moss etc. The Belize artisans learned their trade from Guatemalans who had worked on Tikal.



The work being done at this time is very extensive. These workers work 20 days on and then home for a few. The Belize government has thoughts of making Caracol a major tourist centre such as Tikal is. However, they will also have to rebuild a long road through the Mayan mountains to achieve this.




Our trip back was quite eventful. We encountered a van that had driven off the road into the steep high bank on the side and had tipped back onto the road. The men were called upon to lift the van, and hold it, while a chain was attached and a truck pulled it back onto the road, missing its windshield and with 2 flat tires.



We then stopped at the Rio On pools where we, & Barb & Bill got into our suits and played in the waterfalls, slides and massage pools.