Friday photo – Looking out of the cave
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Inside the cave, looking out

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We were up in the mountains of the Pine Ridge area of Belize.  After driving for miles along a very bumpy dirt road (the kind that makes me SO happy somebody else is driving!), we reached an abandoned little town.

There wasn’t a lot to it.  There were probably never more than a few hundred people there, and no major buildings.  The small houses were still standing, and looked to be in decent condition, though clearly uninhabited for quite a long time.

It’s a modern-day ghost town.   Nobody living in the homes, or tending the gardens.  Nobody minding the store, that used to supply residents with so many necessities.  Nobody in the yards, or out on the dirt streets.  No laundry drying, or kids playing, or sounds of laughter or conversation.

But to our guide, Edgar, the place came alive.

He told us this was where he lived as a child, after his parents came to Belize from neighboring Guatemala.  In those days it was a forestry town, run by the company that paid the people to cut the trees.  To him it was home.

We went by the house he lived in, and talked about his family, and how he and the rest of the kids in the neighborhood used to play.

That’s where the cave comes in.  The cave was the kids’ favorite playground.

We went in with our flashlights, carefully watching our step, and following his directions.  “Big step down over this way, and stick close to the wall. Watch out, there’s a big hole over there.”  It was quite a big cave, with a creek running through it, and multiple levels that you could clamber over, and that’s just the part we saw.

Once we got into the middle of the cave, he had us turn off our flashlights, so we could see it the way they did.  It was dark!  And those kids didn’t have flashlights.  Obviously their eyes adapted better than ours did.  And I’m sure they passed knowledge of where to go / not go from one person to another, just as he did to us.

The kids loved it.   You could still hear it in his voice.  And I could put myself there, imagining how much I would have loved this as a child.  Wow!

But here in the US, it would be deemed too dangerous for kids to play in, and for logical reasons.  A dark cave, with no lights, long steep drops onto hard rocks, and holes big enough for a person to fall through, is definitely risky.  Without a doubt, here it would be off limits.  Someone would have to take precautions to keep everyone out, or risk being sued.  I don’t know whether such precautions really would have prevented any serious injuries.  But it would certainly have prevented what was clearly one of Edgar’s favorite things about growing up in that little town.

Eventually, the forestry company moved out, all the jobs left, and so did all the people.    Now, there are no “regular people” living there.  Just some soldiers who were posted in the area – both Belizean and British.  (A leftover from Belize’s colonial past as British Honduras.)

Funny, but I never expected to find a “recent ghost town” in Belize.  Ancient abandoned cities, yes! Belize has extensive ruins of major Mayan cities that thrived many centuries ago.  Cities bigger than any in the country today!  But this little ghost town, that still lived in the mind of our guide, caught me by surprise.

That’s one thing about travel.  You never know what to expect, and there are always things that catch you by surprise.  If there weren’t, then it wouldn’t be an adventure, right?

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We’ll be heading off in April on an exciting, adventurous trip to Belize.  There are a few days left in our Presidents’ Day special offer, so if you think you might like to explore a cave in Belize (or some Mayan ruins, or some coral reefs), check it out by the 16th.
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