LA CASA DE DON DAVID - Key Persons

Often confused with the ‘Blue Hole' off shore, this is a very small but nice place, and well worth the stop. Visit just to cool down after a hot day. There are limestone caves throughout Belize and most have rivers that run through them at various times of the year. Occasionally the ground will cave in, allowing a look into an open air cave. This is what happened to create the ‘Blue Hole'. The water boils up on one end of the chasm and flows into a cave at the other end. The water is a very deep turquoise blue due to dissolved minerals and it is cool and running swiftly. From the Hummingbird Highway about 19 miles south of Belmopan, there is a small roadside park. You pay an attendant about $4.00 park fee, and take concrete steps down 100 feet to the river bed. You can swim and watch birds and butterflies. It is a great place for a picnic.

Just outside of San Ignacio there are some of the most architecturally diverse Mayan Ruins in Belize, Cahal Pech (ka-hall petch). View examples of the ‘corbelled' arch (the Maya version of the Roman arch), walk into chambers where royalty slept, and see 2000 year old red plaster still intact on the walls.

The ‘Panti Medicinal Trail' is also an interesting place to visit. The herbalist who lives there is from Ohio, but she studied with one of Belize's greatest bush doctors, ‘Don Elijio Panti', before he died. She has created a well-marked medicinal plant path and her tours are very interesting. She has several medicinal products for sale and you can learn about plants used by the Maya and still in use today for healing the body and spirit.