San Ignacio, more than just the ATM cave

Trip date December 2025 All prices in Belize dollars - 1 GBP = 2.69 BZD March 2026

While planning our route from Mexico to Guatemala we hit a small bump in the road. Although the two countries share a rather large border, the UK Foreign advice page for Mexico shades both the border crossings a lovely orange (meaning they consider the area dangerous and our insurance would be invalid while in the area). Not wanting to risk anything bad happening without a safety net, we decided on the longer route via Belize instead.

There was an option of a continuous shuttle bus that starts in Mexico and ends in Flores (Guatemala)... however this kind of sounded like hell to us. While the shuttle companies claim the trip will only take 10 hours, their "TripAdvisor" page has many negative comments saying the bus took up to 15 hours to actually get there. Why risk that when we could split the journey up and have some time to explore Belize instead?

Our trip started with crossing the Mexico - Belize border on the chicken bus, before switching buses in Belize city for a bus towards Benque. Although San Ignacio wasn't the last stop on the route, the bus attendant let us know when it was time to get off. I have to admit, the chicken buses, while loud and colourful and convenient are not at all comfortable - especially after 8 hours. We arrived with bruised bottoms, cramped legs, and a desire to make the most of the few days we had planned to spend in Belize.

Many people, when they think of Belize, think of white sands, snorkelling clear waters and pina coladas. San Ignacio isn't really like that. It's a small town set amidst rolling hills and dense lush jungle; there's ancient ruins, caves, rivers and waterfalls to explore. Although set up for tourism with hostels, hotels, restaurants, bars and tour offices filling the town centre, it still retained a rustic local charm. The raised wooden houses filling the towns' streets were careworn and simple, and dotted amongst the neighbourhoods were smaller food stalls and bakeries, selling cheaper everyday fare.

San Ignacio is well known as being Belize's adventure capital, and although if we went back we might be interested in exploring the famous ATM cave or to have a go at zip-lining through the jungle, this time we were more interested in the Maya archeological ruins.

There was two nearby ruins on our list to explore, and the first we could walk to from our accommodation. As we were staying in a guesthouse a long slog up a steep hill from the town centre, we thought we might be saved a tough walk to Cahal Pech. Sadly this wasn't the case and before we could start exploring, we had another mammoth hill to tackle. Boo! Entry to the site cost $20 each, which admittedly felt like quite a lot for a relatively unknown site.

Before we entered the archaeological site, we first were routed through a small museum. We quickly glanced about, skimming through the exhibits, we were eager to start looking around the ruins before it started raining (again). In hindsight we should have paid more attention. The ruins, while interesting, had zero information plaques so we really were on our own with working out what the structures were used for.

With the site receiving relatively few visitors (we saw maybe 3 other people the whole time we were there), no areas were set as off-limits so we could clamber over as much as the ruins as we wanted. Handy: as half of the well trodden routes seemed to weave through and over one structure to get to another. Different to other ruins we'd visited, Cahal Pech had structures that seemed residential with small rooms with stone shelves (used as beds) branching off of main courtyards, alongside the classic pyramidal buildings.

Feeling peckish after thoroughly exploring the site, we wandering back into town for some lunch. Although there was plenty of local options nearer to where we were based, they were mainly meat focused so they wouldn't have much to offer for me. However, Martha's Kitchen on a side street near the centre had a few things I was happy to try. In the end I went with their vegetarian option of chaya with tortilla and black beans. It didn't photograph well, but it was delicious! So good that I had the same when we returned the next afternoon.

The other Maya archeological site we wanted to visit, Xunantunich, wasn't quite as convenient to visit. Located on the outskirts of Benque, we needed to first grab a bus to get anywhere near it. The bus ran about every hour from outside the visitor information centre in San Igancio, only costing us a couple of Belizean dollars each. We asked the attendant to tell us when it get off, and the bus dropped us right next to the hand crank ferry we needed to get on next. The river the hand crank ferry traverses is tiny and passage only took a minute, although it was free we tipped the cranker (?) as we rather enjoyed the experience. If you had a car, getting from the ferry to the park entrance would be a doddle. We were walking, so tackling the mile and a half of up-hill road took slightly longer, at least it only started really raining when we were almost there.

Entry to the site was $25 each, and although it was a lot busier than Cahal Pech, it still wasn't very busy at all. First founded in 300 BCE and occupied until 1050 CE, Xunantunich was a small commercial centre which owed allegiance to the much larger Calakmul to the south before later being invaded by Tikal (which now lies in Guatemala). Much of the site is still covered by dense jungle and un-excavated, but what we could see was impressive.

The largest pyramid, EL Castillo, is comprised of three main sections; a large staircase leading from the main plaza to a wide plateaux on which a more classic Maya pyramidal building sits. Differing to other pyramids we'd seen, this one had rooms on the top-most level and evidence of more rooms inside accessed through interior staircases. As the stone steps were rather slippy on our visit, I only climbed as high as the second level while Ben braved his way to the 130ft summit...where he met a rather rambunctious dog which made his descent a bit more perilous.

Right at the other end of the site was my other favourite structure from the site, known as structure 11. There a staircase leads to a smaller plaza surrounded by sleeping chambers (uncomfortable stone beds were still in situ). The far end of the plaza had another set of stairs, that led to a precarious narrow staircase with a rather steep drop to one side of it. Ignoring the absolute fear that I would clumsily (and comically) fall to my death like a cartoon character, I made my way up and was rewarded with a viewpoint looking over much of the site. As much as I enjoy the more flashy ceremonial and governmental buildings of the Maya, there something fascinating to me in seeing a glimpse to the more mundane aspects of life... and the monkey playing in a tree growing from the ruins was pretty cool too.

All in all, Xunantunich was well worth the effort to get there and the price to get in. Unlike Cahal Pech, there was informational plaques dotted around the site itself, and there are a few exhibition spaces showcasing stele that were found on the site.

As San Ignacio is Belize's adventure capital, we made sure to do a little bit of "adventuring" while we visited in the form of renting a canoe. Although online blogs and forums recommended renting a canoe upstream from the town and canoeing to the centre we decided to do things a little differently. On google maps I saw a spot in the river labeled "Tony Canoe" and after reading the reviews decided he was our guy.

The only way to organise hire with him is via text, but luckily he's on Whatsapp so that was no problem. Things were simple, canoe hire was $40 and we'd pay when we picked up the canoe. The meeting point was next to the bridge by the market, and although we all spoke English, the only advice we were given was to head up stream... he never mentioned the rapids.

Within 5 minutes of setting out it started to rain, not a light drizzle but thick heavy raindrops that soaked us within seconds. Finding a nice leafy tree overhanging the river, we hid 'til the worst of it passed before bailing out the water that had gathered underneath out feet and heading back out. It was about forty-five minutes in that we encountered our first obstacle. Although we couldn't manage to get the canoe up the small rapids with our rowing prowess, getting out and dragging it up seemed to work just fine.

The second rapids were a little harder, we managed to find a route to drag the canoe up but getting back inside the boat was a bit of a challenge. We persevered but not without a bit of marital bickering along the way. By the third set of rapids we decided to try and brute our way up. We got a big run up, and we rowed and rowed and rowed, not moving more than a couple of feet. There wasn't really a clear place to get out, so after three failed attempts to traverse them we gave up. It wasn't worth getting into a sticky situation over so we decided to head back, our ultimate goal of reaching the botanic gardens unfulfilled.

We hadn't managed to spot any wildlife of our journey upriver (apart from a few bats that shared a overhanging cave with us another time it rained), but when we stopped rowing with a purpose and lazily floated back, we were luckier. Birds flitted from tree to tree, large iguanas hung to tree branches, a howler monkey slept among the leaves and a tiny snake wiggled it's way across the river. It wasn't the perfect day out we had planned, but ultimately we enjoyed ourselves despite never making it to the botanic gardens.

So would I recommend stopping in San Ignacio on the way through from Mexico to Guatemala? 100% yes! We had a wonderful time in Belize's most well known jungle town and despite staying four nights, it felt like we barely scratched the surface on what the area had to offer. We might have focused more on the archeological side of things, but I feel like the area has something for everyone; horse riding, cave tubing, cave tours, adventure sports, and did I mention the amazing cake spots we found? Maybe for city lovers the town, while charming, might lack some vibrant nightlife... but it had everything we needed for our visit.

If you wanted to know about that cake I mentioned...

Cake from the unassuming but lovely bakery near our accommodation : Sweet Ting.