XUNANTUNICH

After weeks and weeks of waiting for the river to go down, we finally made it to Xunantunich (to access the site you take a hand-cranked ferry across the Mopan River). Xunantunich, our neighbor a mile or so west of Nabitunich, means “Stone Maiden” in Maya and the ruins carry over two thousand years of history. Artifacts have been dated by as far as 200 BC though the height of the civilization took place between 200-900 AD and was one of the major cultural, political, economic, religious, and agricultural centers in it’s time. The largest pyramid, El Castillo, rises 130 feet above the main plaza and offers an impressive panoramic view of the Cayo District and Guatemala. It is also visible in the distance from the Nab, something incredible to look at and think about as we walk to lunch or class. The Maya are one of the many diverse people groups in Belize and have left significant cultural and historical impacts on this country. They developed complex writing systems, were brilliant astronomers and mathematicians, carried out colorful religious rituals throughout cities like Xunantunich, and developed a calender as accurate as the one we live by today (the Maya calender ends 21 December 2012!).