ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal) Cave of the Crystal Maiden

ATM was our favourite tour. It starts with a 45 minute hike, crossing through the river 3 times along the way. Then a short swim into the cave, and hiking in water from ankle to chest deep while inside the cave (about 3 hours) in complete darkness except for the light of our headlamps. The whole cave is filled with stalagtites and stalagmites (mostly stalagtites) and then the beautiful calcite crystals gleaming by the light of our headlamps. When you get to the part where you have to climb up to where the ancient Mayans had done their sacrifices, you have to take off your shoes and wear socks only so that neither your shoes or the oils from your feet destroy any crystal formations. Up there is where all the Mayan pots and skeletons from sacrifices were - even young children.

Afterwards we had lunch at the camp site, and then headed back along the trail, crossing through the river three times again, but this time soaking wet.

After a whole day of hiking, soaking wet, it was great to change into our dry clothes at the end.

I was going to do these in order of how we did our tours, but this was our favourite, so I did it first :)

Here's the pics:

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St. George's Caye pics

The Manatee tour, with no pics of manatees. Stop on St. George's Caye for the slowest lunch ever!

Here is a link with info on the historical St.George's Caye.

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And, now we can start our Caves Branch pics finally! Helen and Michael will be happy to hear that I'm sure ;)

I wish we had more time to do them...

Well, off to clean the house, and hopefully we'll get to some of the Caves Branch photos later in the week.

More Caye Caulker Pictures

Finally got around to doing some more pictures this weekend. Still on Caye Caulker though! Lots of snorkelling pics.

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Bone Detective

On Discovery Channel right now, we are watching an episode of Bone Detective. They are featuring two sites in Belize! The cave is so reminding us of ATM.

Episode Guide:

CAVE OF THE HEADLESS CORPSE
Scotty travels to Belize where a cave has been discovered deep in the jungle containing thousands of human bones. As Scotty ventures down more than ten stories into the cave, he discovers a skeleton in a hidden chamber — but the head is missing! Scotty embarks on a search for the missing skull. If he can find the skull, he might be able to identify this victim, and solve the mystery of the cave known as "Midnight Terror." Was this man buried in the cave to honor his life? Or was he the victim of a violent ritual sacrifice deep inside the ancient Mayan underworld?

Interactive Map


It's pretty interesting , though it didn't get a very good recommendation from the Belize archaeologists that were filmed.