Caracol and Mountain Pine Ridge

ForestsCayo,Belize

A Maya city that defeated Tikal in 562, its Sky Palace the tallest structure in Belize, hidden inside a cool pine highland on ancient granite.

September·Quiet month

Jun–Oct

The rains green the pines and the falls thunder at full power, and scarlet macaws nest in the Chiquibul. But the deep track to Caracol turns to mud and can shut for days after storms, and tours cancel.

Year-round The Maya 'Sky Palace' of Caracol and the cool pine highland with its granite falls are here year-round; the dry season, November to April, firms the rough access road.

Caracol was a Maya superpower that defeated the great city of Tikal in 562 AD, an upset that plunged its larger rival into more than a century of silence. At its height around 650 AD the city sprawled across nearly 200 square kilometres and held well over a hundred thousand people, more than live in Belize City today. Its royal acropolis, Caana or the Sky Palace, still rises about 43 metres above the plaza and remains the tallest structure ever built in Belize. All of this lies hidden inside the Mountain Pine Ridge, a cool highland of Caribbean pines standing on some of the oldest rock in Central America. It is a fragrant, almost temperate island, utterly unlike the tropical forest around it. The rough road that climbs up here strings several stops together in a single day. Rio Frio cave opens into a cool granite chamber. Big Rock falls drops into a clear pool you can swim in. Thousand Foot Falls, despite the name, falls closer to 1,600 feet down a granite cliff, which makes it the highest waterfall in Central America. In the early morning mist smoulders over the pines while toucans and endangered scarlet macaws call across the valleys. At dusk jaguars and ocelots move unseen through the Chiquibul, the largest protected forest in the country. Climb Caana's steep stone stairs and the untouched canopy spreads unbroken to the horizon. Reaching all this still takes effort. The site sits near the Guatemalan border, so you sign in at a Belize Defence Force checkpoint on the way, and the access road is only now being paved.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The dry season, roughly November to April, is the only reliable window — the unpaved stretches turn to deep mud in the rains, and the road holds firm only then.
Start at first light — the morning mist and macaw calls are at their best, and you beat both the midday heat on Caana and the tour convoys arriving from San Ignacio.
Caana's stone stairs are steep and high — bring water, sturdy shoes and sun cover, as shade is thin on the exposed pyramid top and the day is long.

Things to do

1
Cross Caracol's plazas and climb Caana
Cross the wide plazas and courtyards of a city that once held over a hundred thousand people, where the jungle has swallowed the temples and carved stelae still name its long-dead kings. Then climb Caana, the Sky Palace, whose steep stone stairs rise about 43 metres — the tallest structure ever built in Belize. From the top the untouched canopy runs unbroken to the horizon, with almost no shade once you are up there.
2
Listen for howlers at dawn, watch for cats at dusk
Before dawn the black howler monkeys let out a roar you feel in your chest, one of the loudest calls of any land animal, rolling through the empty ruins and the pines. At the other end of the day, ocelots and jaguars hunt the Chiquibul, the largest protected forest in Belize. Seeing a cat is down to luck, so the best you can do is be out on the forest tracks in the last light, when they cross between the pines and the broadleaf.
3
Cool off at Big Rock falls
Big Rock falls spills over a granite ledge at the foot of the pine forest into a clear pool that is deep enough to swim in. The water comes straight off the highland granite, so it stays cold even at midday, and you can sit on the rocks at the edge or wade in under the falling water.

Watch

Nearby

81 km