The Maya ruins at Caracol are similar to those at Tikal.  I booked a tour on a small busito holding 6 of us.  50 kilometers from San Ignacio, we left at 0730 climbing a dirt road up into the jungle.  The site is much smaller than Tikal and I wondered how the city-state was able to defeat Tikal in the late 800s CE, but they did.  The Maya civilization disappeared soon thereafter.  Belize is a very small, diverse country of 320,000 inhabitants.  The languages spoken here are Creole, English (the official language), Spanish, Garifuna, 3 separate Maya languages, and Chinese (a very large presence here).  As I made my way through the country touching bases with Peace Corps staff and Volunteers I stayed overnight at Belmopan, the capital, as I made my way to Dangriga situated seaside.  There I stayed with Dr Steve and his wife Cathy, PCVs, and accompanied the doc and his counterpart on a site visit to a Mayan community.  Following the pics from bottom right I flew from Belize City at 0800 on Friday the 13th to San Pedro Sula riding the puddle-jumper in the pic over Dangriga and then over the Gulf of Honduras to the Honduras coast.  I was home in La Paz by 2PM.  Thoughts about my trip in a later post.