On Friday while staying in San Ignacio, Belize, I went for a day trip to the Actun Tunichil Muknil Caves, that are categorically the coolest cave system I've ever been in. The caves were about an hours drive through the country side from San Ignacio followed by an hour long hike through the jungle to the cave with three rivers on the way that we waded across. To enter the cave you dived into the pool at the entrance and swam through the mouth. the next kilometer or so you waded, scrambled, squeezed and swam through the cave and the stream that ran through it before the water got deeper and the cave got wider.....it was basically canyoning underground, with the only light being provided by the head torch mounted on your helmet.

The next kilometer into the cave was a lot easier going with a broader stream to wade through that flowed with a lot more force making the bottom smoother and easier to wade. Though the stream and the cave continued on for another three kilometers we stopped and climbed up a rock face out of the water into a dry section of the cave. We'd climbed up to enter a section of the cave that the local Mayans had used for blood letting rituals and human sacrifice. As we climbed further and further into this section of the caves the chambers seemed to get bigger and bigger and there were more Mayan vessels which were used for rituals and sacrifices. Eventually we started seeing human remains in the forms of skulls and bones.

At the end of a massive chamber lined with stalactites, stalagmites and columns we entered another narrow gap and after several more scrambles and climbs we had to go up via a ladder to the next ledge. A few meters in we saw the cave's highlight an almost complete skeleton of a female that had been sacrificed. After taking some photos our guide asked for all light to be switched off and as we sat there in the pitch black he talked us through the likely ritual (which archaeologists) that this young woman had witnessed in her last minutes of life and then left us in silence to contemplate........

It was an amazing experience probably due to the varied terrain and the fact that the cave has only been open for tours for the last 5-6 years (only discovered in the late 1990's). It was raw with no installed lighting and no smooth path to walk on as many other tourist caves. The shame is that for the long term preservation of the cave, as tourism to this area of Belize increases it will probably need to be 'sanitised'. From the Mayan sites I've seen so far on the Yucatan this was probably the most spectacular both from a cultural significance and natural wonder vantage points yet it was the only one I've seen without a World Heritage listing - the Belizian government need to pull their finger out on this one.