Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hokeb Ha Cave
Fifteen minutes' walk upriver from the
Blue Creek Rainforest Lodge
, outside Blue Creek
village, you reach the
source of Blue Creek
, where the water gushes from beneath a
mossy rock face. Alongside is the entrance to
Hokeb Ha Cave
, which is fairly easy to
explore, and often busy on Sundays with visitors and children trying to sell souvenirs.
As well as being festooned with huge stalactites and stalagmites, its inner recesses
shelter a Maya altar. This entire area is made of limestone bedrock honeycombed with
caves, many of which were sacred to the Maya, and plenty of others are doubtless
waiting to be rediscovered.
6
Aguacate
Five miles west of Blue Creek, the undeveloped yet sublimely pretty Kekchí village of
Aguacate
is an ideal place to learn the traditional methods of cooking wild meat and
freshly caught river shrimp. It's home to a few families in the Maya Homestay
programme (see box, p.220).
San Benito Poité
14 miles west of Blue Creek, 40 miles west of Punta Gorda • Buses to San Benito Poité leave Punta Gorda at noon on Mon, Wed, Fri & Sat
(2hr 30min)
West of Blue Creek, the rough, unpaved road climbs a ridge to the valley of the Moho
River, passing through the community of
Santa Teresa
before reaching
San Benito
Poité
. Most of the inhabitants of this very traditional village speak only Kekchí, plus a
smattering of Spanish, and they may not be as immediately welcoming as in other
Toledo villages. The few visitors who make their way this far up the valley, almost to
the Guatemalan border, come not so much to see San Benito Poité itself, as the ancient
Maya city of
Pusilhá
, the ruins of which are located in and around the village. If you
want to visit the site, it's essential to
ask permission
from the
alcalde
(similar to a
mayor) as soon as you arrive.
At the entrance to the village, a bridge crosses the fast-flowing Pusilhá (Machaca)
River, with a lovely
camping
spot nearby. Just downstream, the Pusilhá and Poité rivers
meet to form the
Moho River
, the middle stretch of which holds some of the most
exhilarating
whitewater rapids
in Central America - occasionally paddled by raft and
kayak expedition groups from overseas.
Pusilhá
No fixed hours or admission; ask for permission to visit in San Benito Poité
The largest Maya site in southern Belize,
Pusilhá
remains only minimally excavated. To
make sense of what you see, you're strongly recommended to go with a Kekchí-
speaking
guide
, arranged either in advance through the BTIA o
ce in Punta Gorda
(see p.207), or on the spot with the
alcalde
of San Benito Poité.
Strategically built on high land between the confluence of two rivers, the site has
yielded an astonishing number of carved monuments, including
zoomorphic altars
- great, rounded stone tablets carved with stylized animals - similar to those at
Quiriguá in Guatemala. Archeologists originally believed that Pusilhá was under
Quiriguá's control, but recent studies indicate a closer connection with Copán in
Honduras. Although many monuments were removed to the British Museum during
expeditions in the late 1920s, the
Stela Plaza
- the city's sacred centre - still holds a few
eroded stelae and three zoomorphic altars resembling frogs. Nearby you can see the
remains of a
walled ball-court
.
The highlight, however, is the finest
Maya bridge
to survive anywhere in the Maya
world, built at a narrow point over the Pusilhá River. Clearly visible are the remains of
the main abutments, solid vertical walls of cut stones and supported by ramps of rock.
In ancient times the bridge supports would have been spanned by beams of sapodilla
wood, carrying the road to the
Gateway Hill Acropolis
. Both the palace of Pusilhá's
