Twelve hours in Belize, and we spent them on a ruin

Twelve hours off the ship, and worth every minute of them.

Getting there is most of the day

Xunantunich is not a quick stop. It is a bus ride across Belize, most of the way to the Guatemalan border, and then a crossing of the Mopan River before you even start walking.

The river crossing is a hand-cranked ferry. Somebody turns a crank and the ferry goes across. Watch it happen instead of scrolling through it. That is the moment you get how far out you are.

The climb up El Castillo

Xunantunich is the site. El Castillo is the pyramid, the tall one in the middle of it, and it is the one you climb.

From the top you can see all the way into Guatemala. Not a viewpoint that gestures toward another country, an actual one, laid out in front of you.

The guide is half of it

The ruin is what you came for. The guide is what you did not know you came for.

Most of what I know about Maya culture I learned standing in front of it, not reading about it later. It sticks better that way.

He also had us eat termites, which are a local delicacy there. I tried them.

They taste like mint. Not sort of like mint. Like mint. Nobody believes me until they try one.

The choice people agonize over

If you are cruising Belize and torn between a beach day and the ruins, go see the ruins.

Not because one beach is the same as the next. They are not. The sand is different, the reef is different, and a good water day in Belize is a real thing worth having.

But you can get in the water on almost any stop. There is one Xunantunich, it is a bus across the country and a river crossing and a climb to reach it, and nothing on the rest of the itinerary is going to be like it. That is the day you will still be talking about.