We made the Cahal Pech ruin the last day of our stay. It is right down the road almost on the property. The day is looking like hot, and more hot, sun blazing. We stop at the entrance window, pay the fee, and pick up a small brochure about the site. A guide introduces himself to us an offers his services for $15. He explains he hold an ungrad degree from Oklahoma with a major in Indian Studies and went to graduate school in Santo Domenigo. Having had good experiences with guides, we hire him.
What made Cahal Pech different from the other sites was for the first time the buildings were interconnected in the same square pattern. Like any other large home, you could go from from to from, kitchen to the royal bedrooms, then temples. This was a first for our eyes as the rest were all on a North South, East, West axis and not connected to each other. The climbs and walkways were more precarious in Cahal Pech. There are climbs where you have nothing to hold onto up or down. In order to get to the connecting room/ruins, we walked narrow walkways about a foot in width and two stories high to get to another part of the house. I hope the potosi post will give you a different sense of these ruins. Good thing we don't drink until after our climbs. And you thought we didn't drink because of religious significance and respect for the ruins.
Our guide was information but way to fast. Along the way, he showed us plants and tress used for shoelace, cooking, spices, oils, lowering cholesterol and a tree bark that when drunk gave you strength. We wales an he explain through words and pantomime the various altars, temples, household, ball courts, burial sites and a Mayan Mediation room. We enter the room with him and asked us to relax, close our eyes, we were in a very important place in Mayan Culture. He guided us using imagery and smells of plats that were used in the ritual to create a calmness getting us deeper into the mediation. We left the room continued on to a few of the outlining building then ended our tour where it began.
Cahal Pech: online sours information
Cahal Pech is just 5-minute walk from The Cahal Pech Resort and overlooks the town. Cahal Pech means "place of ticks" in modern-day Maya, and refers to the fact that the surrounding area was once used as pasture land. However, this was the royal acropolis-palace of an elite Mayan ruling family who lived here during the Classic period. Cahal Pech was settled around 1000 BC and abandoned by 800 AD.
The site consists of seven plazas and over 30 structures including temples, residential buildings, ballcourts, an altar, and a sweathouse, all situated on just 2 acres. A royal burial chamber was found in one of the structures. Inside the tomb a ruler had been laid to rest with the accoutrements necessary for the afterlife. Included in the find were shell & bone ornaments, pottery vessels, obsidian blades, and jade objects, the most impressive being a jade & shell mosaic mask. One of the temples in this small complex commands the best view of the surrounding Belize River Valley. The visitor center and museum has a model of the site, excellent paintings showing Cahal Pech in its heyday, and an interpretive film.
A square of building interconnected
The Mayans did not have the knowledge of the rounded arch, hence this is how they build all their roofs.
Meditation room
Walkway between parts of the house.
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