Day Four...

The day started at 6:00 AM. We had a quick breakfast, I had an omelet and a banana and Jason had sime puffy bread and honey. We started the ATM Cave tour at 8:00 AM. This time there was one other couple in the tour. The other couple did not ride with us because they were going to drive their rental car to another place in Belize immediately after the tour.

On the ride to the cave, the guide, a man of Mayan decent, told us that the key to understanding the Mayan religion is to know that everything is about corn. Corn was the most important thing to the Mayans. He told a story about a man who was beaten in a Mayan game that involved a 9 pound solid rubber ball being pushed through a hole using only the hips and shoulders by the gods. The gods were mad at the man because they lived in the underworld and the bouncing of the rubber ball was loud and annoying to them, so when they beat him, the put his head on a tree in the under world. Eventually the head turned into a skull and a daughter of the gods saw the skull and was drawn to it. The skull spit into the hand of the daughter and she became pregnant and gave birth to a set of twins. The twins grew up and became good at playing the game like their father. The gods got annoyed again and challenged them, but the twins were tricksters a d beat the gods. They got their father's head back and brought prosperity back to the land. The guide showed us a carving and said the skull represents a corn kernel and the twins standing in either side of the top of the skull represents the leaves of a corn sprout. The story is about the sprouting of corn.

The guide said that in the Mayan religion, water is important for growing corn, so the rain god is the most important god. Sacrifices would be made until the rain came.

When we got to the cave site, the other couple immediately started putting sun screen on. The tour guide told them that there isn't much sun in the cave. He also said that when you first go into the cave there is a film of chemicals on the surface of the water due to people putting so much chemicals on their skin...exactly like what the couple just did. The couple mentioned they were from San Francisco. 

Cell phones and cameras are not allowed in the cave after a person dropped a cameras on a skull and smashed a hole in it in 2012, so there are no photos from the cave tour. 

The tour itself was pretty spectacular. There were points where you had to squeeze through very small openings just above the water level then swim to a flat parts of if the cave then climb up rock walls. The mineral deposits were amazing and overall it was very fun. 

Throughout the cave there were artifacts from the Mayans. The Mayans would sacrifice people or would pierce themselves to get the rain god to make it rain. At on alter in the cave the guide, who was from  Mayan decent, told us how women would take a stingray tail and push the their tongue or men would push the stingray tail through their genial as a sacrifice to the gods. 

The guide showed us broken clay pots and ashes that were used in ceremonies. The ceremonies would entail a lot of incense and smoke and the particants would take drugs and see images in the shadows on the cave walls that would give them thoughts about what the gods wanted or thought. The guide said that the lack of oxygen and the drugs were what gave people the religious experience, but the drugs were the key.

The guide also showed us human remains, some were adults, some were children. He showed us that the skulls were modified by shaping the skull at birth and the teeth were filled into shapes, so obviously, the people were of importance. The skulls were broken on the side from bludgeoning. They were sacrificed to the rain god. He showed us the broken skull from a camera and finally he showed us the "The Crystal Maiden of the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) Cave". The "Crystal Maiden" is actually the skeleton of a 17 year old boy (the same age as Jason).

After we left the cave, we did a cannonball into the pool at the cave entrance and then we went to have lunch at a picnictabke by the parking lot. Jason and I had chicken and cheese quesadillas, bananas and banana bread.

We drove back to the hotel and the guide told us that the farm we were driving past was a Mennonite farm. He said they were quite folks, but they were investing in the community. 

Once we were back at the hotel, i got a shower and Jason got some shirts from the gift shop and suggested we go to the Mayan ruins next door to the hotel. 

At the next door ruins, we explored the structures and talked and just had a great time joking and exploring. I scared Jason at one point by hiding in a dark room, he screamed and then turned his camera light on while I laughed. We then saw a bat or maybe more than one bat flying around so we ran out of the room. Jason made fun of me for hiding in a room with bats, I made fun of him for screaming like a little girl.

We climbed to the top of one structure and Jason started singing a song about being "Indiana Jones". Overall, it was a fun and funny time.

On the way out if the ruins, I was sweating so much, Jason was laughing about how wet my clothes were. We decided that we would go to the little gift shop and we both got a shirt from the Cahal Peach ruins.

Once we came back, Jason wanted to swim, so we put our bathing suits one and headed to the pool. There were 2 pools, one had a couple, doing intimate couple things in it, the other had two boys wrestling in it. We went to the pool with the boys.

We swam and talked and joked and had a great time. I told him that I had a theory about the Mayan sacrifices, particularly the ones we saw in the cave. I think the sacrifices were members of the royal family. Either extra heirs or heirs that would have completed for the throne. If the gods wanted the "best", why not sacrifice some spare heirs. Additionally, I don't think the players of the Mayan game got sacrificed, I think they were champions for different royals, and the loosing champion's royal was the one sacrificed. 

We watched a fire in the distance and ended up talking to a couple with a young son from Oregon. 

Jason wanted something to eat, so he ordered some fried chicken strips and rice and sweet and sour sauce from the hotel restaurant while I took another shower to get the chlorine off me.

He came back to the room, offered me a tast of his food (it was pretty good) and I ate the leftover pizza from yesterday. We both called our girlfriends and then laid in bed. He watched sports and I typed up the events of the day. We then went to sleep.