Tuesday (22nd)

Early start for the trip to 'Xantinitch - Mayn ruins'. Took the boat taxi to the main land follower by a massive 3 hour drive! It was a bit of a trek but was worth it when we got there. Has a guided tour around the ruins and climbed right to the top. Clare got a bit wobblerly and ha to cling to the wall. It was very hot and dry. We had all the historic facts from the guide of which 80% were guess work as there is little know of the Myans, they have to make a lot of assumptions about this 1500 year old civilisation. They came to a very hasty and mysterious demise. It seams as if they used up all their natural resources, ruined the land, angered the workers and fled with the booty to leave them starve!!! and governments have supposed to have improved in 1500 years!

We were only a few Kilometres from the Guatemalan border; we could actually see it from the top of the ruins. The bad feeling was apparent with most of the Belizeans we meet, they were all very grateful to the British for their military protection and continued commonwealth obligation even after their independence, otherwise they'd be easily taken by Guatemala.

On the way back we stopped off at the (inland) 'blue hole' for a swim. It's a small swim hole of which no one has actually managed to get to the bottom, the belief is that it links with some other caves miles under ground.

We arrived back in time to square everything away with Brian at the Seahorse dive shop, packed for our fight (s) tomorrow and had a final slap up dinner at Wendy's and ice cream at the parlour.