Xunantunich Ruins and Cave Tubing...


Dive Shop Blue Hole Eagle Ray Mayan Ruin Nurse Shark Eco Divers Dolphins Tubing

Ecologic Divers

This is our brand new dive shop rebuilt in the Fall of 2016 after Hurricane Earl destroyed our old shop.  We are still in the same place, on the north end of Barrier Reef Drive just south of the Phoenix Resort.  Yes, we are now open for business.  Please come visit us!

Great Blue Hole

The Great Blue Hole is a large submarine sinkhole off the coast of Belize.  It lies near the center of the Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 36 miles from Ambergris Caye.  The hole is circular in shape, 984 ft across and 407 feet deep.  We dive the Blue Hole to a depth of 130 feet where we explore the stalactites.

Mayan Ruins

Mayan ruins and archaeological sites are found throughout Belize.   The Xunantunich site is located 80 miles west of Belize City near the Guatemalan border.  Pictured is the El Castillo temple at Xunantunich, the second tallest structure in Belize.  Let us book your mainland trips and tours.

Spotted Eagle Ray

Spotted eagle rays are commonly sighted in Belize waters, and you will often see them on our dive trips.  If you are snorkeling at the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, be on the lookout for them swimming through the bowl.  They are amazingly beautiful and graceful critters.

Nurse Shark

Nurse sharks seem to always be around on many of our dive trips.  They are, for the most part, harmless.  Ask your Divemaster to dive Esmeralda as these sharks frequent the area.  In contrast to other local dive shops, we do not allow the touching of sharks or any other marine wildlife.

Our Dive Guests

This is a group of our dive guests chillaxing in one of the pools at the Phoenix Resort next door to our dive shop.   The Phoenix Resort was named the best hotel in the world in 2012 by Trip Advisor.  Book a condo at The Phoenix -- it is definitely a first class place to stay on your dive vacation!

Dolphins

You never know when a pod of dolphins is going to show up on one of our dive trips.  It is fun to see them play and interact within the pod, and also with the divers -- they show real personality.

Cave Tubing

Cave tubing is a fun, low stress adventure on the mainland.  The waters in the river are normally shallow, cool and refreshing, and the cave is surprisingly large and long.  Book this trip with us on a day when cruise ships are not in port in order to avoid the maddening crowds.

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Vacation Planning

We can recommend or book your accommodations, dive trips, mainland tours, fishing trips, and even your commuter flights.  Call us at 1-800-244-7774.  We are here to help make your vacation on Ambergris Caye a special and memorable experience!

Protect Our Reefs

We discourage our guests from touching or disturbing the reef coral or any wildlife on their dives.  We value our reef and our wildlife, and want to do everything we can to protect this very special dive and vacation destination.  So ... don't touch our stuff!

Our Dive Trips

We offer the best dive trips on the island.  Our local reef dives and our dive trips to the atolls are lead by the best divemasters on the island.  They are committed to showing you the beauty down under.  Plus, they are a whole lot of fun!  Check out our dive trips here!

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Visit our Ecologic Adventures web site for the best in sailing catamaran charters on Roatan, Honduras.  Whether you want to charter by the day or by the week, we can accommodate you.   Our 50 foot live aboard catamarans are simply beautiful!

Xunantunich Mayan Ruins and Cave Tubing


Plane We had a group of people visiting here in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize from the U.S., a total of 10 adults and two teenagers.  We all decided to take a tour on the mainland of Belize on Tuesday, June 21, 2010.  Ecologic Divers is associated with Mark's Tours, whose owner is Mark Cal, a Belizian native and a Mayan descendant.  Our decision was to visit a Mayan archaeological site called Xunantunich, and to go cave tubing.

Our trip began at 6:30AM when we were picked up by two taxis to take us to the airport in San Pedro.  We chartered a single engine, propeller driven airplane from Mayan Island Air to take us to the municipal airport in Belize City, a short 15 minute flight.  The flight is exciting in that the views of the ocean and cayes at an altitude of around 2,000 feet are mesmerizing.  The airport in Belize City a was tiny, a single strip of asphalt bordering the ocean only feet away and maybe one or two feet above sea level.  We were asking ourselves if it was possible for a plane to land on what looked like a postage stamp on our approach.  Anyway, our landing was uneventful, and we soon boarded our van for a trip across the width of Belize to San Ignacio, our destination being the ruins of Xunantunich (Say {Zoo-nan-two-nich}) which means "stone woman" in Mayan.

Ferry The drive took us a couple of hours over a two lane highway frequented by speed bumps which slowed our forward progress in places to stop and go speeds.  Annoying but with no highway patrol, an effective means of speed control in more populated areas.  The terrain along our route was relatively flat to hilly through heavily wooded areas and sometimes into what I would classify as jungle. To get to the ruins, we had to take a man powered, one car ferry across a small river.  During the crossing we had to leave the van as a precaution against the possibility of the ferry sinking.  A very short drive later we arrived at the Xunantunich visitor center.

We were not expecting much, but when we finally saw the ruins, we were blown away -- they were simply awesome.  Everything was well manicured, the ruins were surprisingly intact, and much bigger than we expected, the pyramid, El Castillo, being around 130 feet tall.  We all decided to climb to the top following our guide Mark.  This climb at times was a bit unsettling in that there are no railings.  Needless to say, we were all very careful, and everyone made it up and down with no mishaps.  The view from the top was stunning allowing us to see many miles in every direction, and to the west, the hills and forests of Guatemala.

Ruins We then went to a restaurant in San Ignacio where we ate chicken, rice, beans, and plantains, the staple foods of Belize.  Very tasty.  Soon we were heading back toward Belize City and the turn off that would take us to the cave tubing site arriving about an hour later.

Luckily there were no cruise ships in Belize this day, and as such, there were no maddening crowds.  We got our truck-sized inner tubes, life jackets and battery powered head lamps, and began our trek upstream through a beautiful forest.  I am guessing the hike was about a mile or so on relatively flat trails, and about half an hour later, we arrived at the entrance to the cave.  It was awesome -- giant limestone cliffs with a crystal clear river flowing out of one cave and almost immediately into the mouth of a second mammoth cave.  Wow!  The cave was much bigger than I expected.  We all entered the clear, cool, refreshing water, got into our inner tubes, rafted together, Tubing and began our drift into the cave beginning with some minor rapids.  The cave quickly got dark and we all turned on our head lamps.  The water was slow moving and progress was relaxingly slow.  The cave was huge -- probably twenty feet tall and maybe fifty feet across, with the water being relatively shallow, sometimes to the point where our rear ends would hit rounded river rocks on the bottom.  The excitement level of this excursion likely varies depending on the flow of water.  In our case, it was very tranquil.  I am guessing we were in the cave for about half an hour before the river emerged into sunlight.  For the next half hour we tubed down the river through the amazingly beautiful forest.  All too soon we arrived back at the visitor center, and dried off for our return trip

Our trip back into Belize City took about another hour as we headed to the municipal airport.  We were split up onto two airplanes for our trip back to San Pedro.  At approximately 6:00pm after a short flight, our remarkable excursion was over ... but never to be forgotten...


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