Our brief sojourn in a little island paradise comes to an end with a fast water taxi that speeds us back across the Caribbean Sea to Belize City and a transfer from the relatively organised tourist ferry terminal to the rather more gritty bus station. Like Belize City itself, the bus station is run down and dilapidated; equal parts chaotic, loud and dirty. Young kids offer their services as porters and there seems to be no discernible organisation to the antiquated buses that come and go. 

Aquilino navigates it all with aplomb, having experienced it many times. He keeps us all together, manages to buy us all tickets and herds us on to the bus to San Ignacio, where we will pick up the Maya trail once more.

Our vehicle, which has the unpromising name El Toxico, is a remodelled old US school bus and we all find seats amongst locals, many of whom are eating lunch out of polystyrene takeaway boxes and chatting loudly on phones in a mix of Creole and English. Coman and I luckily get seats with extra leg room but it then turns out we’re positioned above the back wheel and we feel every bump and pot hole through the three and a half hour journey. There’s no air con but the tops of the windows are wrenched down, creating a proper gusty breeze. Afterwards Ahmed tells us he could see that our tyres were flapping loose most of the way. 

As we leave Belize City the main road cuts straight through an absolutely enormous graveyard, before continuing past shrub land and jungle. After a while clouds start rolling in, the temperature drops and rain spatters the windows. 

Instantly all the Belizeans grab the windows and frantically start shutting them along the bus, while the driver continues on despite his windscreen wipers not really functioning. We pull into Belmopan, the capital of Belize, which is barely more than a large village and have a quick toilet break and stretch our legs while vendors board the bus to sell conch fritters and fried pork skin crackers. 

By mid afternoon we reach the state of Cayo and its twin towns of Santa Elena and San Ignacio, gratefully disembarking and all carrying our bags a couple of blocks to the central Maya Bella Hotel, which also seems to double as a ladies’ hair salon. Rooms allocated and bags dropped we eventually get to have a late lunch in the nearby restaurant Ko Ox Han Nah, which in the local Mayan language means “Let’s go eat”, before heading to the offices of Maya Walk Adventure Tours to choose our activity for tomorrow. 

After video presentations of what’s on offer, and a discussion between Coman and myself about the pros, cons, prices and risks, we end up opting for the most expensive and challenging option of them all - a jungle trek, river swim and cave exploration deep into the Mayan underworld. It’s been highly recommended to us by a couple of friends as well as Aquilino, and sounds pretty exciting, so we book ourselves in with the company and go back to the hotel to prepare our day bags for what’s to come. 

That evening we join Nils, a Danish beer expert who used to run training sessions for Carlsberg across Asia, to sample the local wares at a cute little bar and restaurant called Cucina 1904, with a beer garden. The next morning we head down to the local food market for a breakfast burrito, cooked at a little stall where we grab a plastic chair amongst the throng, and are all present and correct at the Maya Walk offices by 8am. 

The tour we have chosen is to the Actun Tunichil Muknal, or Cave of the Sacred Sepulchre. It promises to take us hiking through the lush subtropical forests of the Tapir Mountain Reserve to the crystal blue waters surrounding the entrance of a remarkable limestone cave system. We’ll then explore its underground passages, past sparkling millennia-old stalactites and stalagmites to discover hidden chambers full of Maya artefacts and remains that reveal the rituals and ceremonies of a lost world. 

Joining us from our Intrepid group are Australian couple Peter and Joanne, Canadian couple Tina and Steve, Toronto lawyer Brian, fellow Brits Lee and Tony, and Kristin from Germany. We’re all given “wet shoes” and put on a bus with our guides Juan Carlos and Magdaleno, and driver, chef and rum punch maker Josiah, to drive from San Ignacio to the caves. 

As we go Magdaleno gives us a potted history of the country, pointing out the Amish and Mennonite communities on the way. He also talks to us about the Actun Tunichil Muknal, joking that ATM stands for Another Tourist Missing. After thirty minutes of tarmac roads we turn down a dirt track for a bumpy seven miles passing through mahogany and teak farms, then sweetcorn and bean plantations, and into jungle. Our minibus trundles over the wooden bridge that crosses Roaring Creek river and then comes to a stop where a number of other vehicles have already pulled up, with a few more tour groups for the day. 

Everyone gets fitted with life jackets, caving helmets and headlamps and we have to leave all our belongings in the bus, especially phones and cameras. Not only does what’s to come involve a lot of water but a number of years ago there were incidences where tourists managed to drop cameras on top of sacred remains and damage them so the Belize government has a strictly enforced ban on all personal devices from this meeting point onwards. Magdaleno promises we will all be sent stock photos of what we’re about to see, and a few days later these images come through. 

We start by having to swim across the Roaring Creek River, with a rope to guide us and then soaking wet setting out on a hike through unspoilt and stunning jungle, fording the river a number of other times as we go. Magdaleno is a remarkably knowledgeable guide,  explaining the history and ecology of the area in great detail, touching on everything from termites and fire ants to the jungle canopy and how the Maya constructed their settlements. 

After about an hour we come to the entrance to the caves and, headlamps turned on, have to swim into the darkness before scrambling up onto rocks. Magdaleno then leads our group along narrow subterranean passageways and through claustrophobic gaps, in waist deep waters and over gushing rapids, with incredible rock formations all around us and bats overhead, for nearly 45 minutes. It’s cold and wet and arduous, with Coman having to take Magdaleno’s powerful torch for some of the way to be able to get some warmth and stop shivering. 

Eventually we leave the waters and, taking our footwear off and proceeding dripping wet in just our socks to protect the sacred space, start to climb up rocks until we make it into spectacular dry chambers full of broken pottery where 1500 years ago the Maya practiced shamanic rituals to commune with the gods in their underground realm of Xibalba and make offerings to bring the rains in times of drought. 

The effort it’s taken us to get here, kitted out with professional equipment, is pretty intense and yet the Maya regularly came here through flowing waters with just flickering torches to guide them. 

In addition to the rituals of blood, smoke and hallucinogens they practised there are skeletal remains all around with evidence of over twenty human sacrifices. Our trek ends in the furthest recesses with a complete skeleton of a teenage boy with his rib-cage ripped open to extract his still beating heart. Magdaleno tells us all to switch our lamps off and we sit in utter, deep, pitch black and silent darkness for an eerie period next to the skeleton. 

We return the way we came, squeezing through tiny openings and clambering over slippery boulders in the running underground waters, thankful to emerge finally to blue skies and hot sunshine. Walking back through the jungle and swimming back through the river we reach our starting point, and change into the dry clothes we have with us, eating lunch and drinking rum punch whilst being eaten by mosquitoes. It’s been quite the experience!

That night we join up with the rest of our Intrepid group and have a ‘farewell to Belize’ dinner at the very lovely Guava Limb restaurant in San Ignacio. Friendships are being forged and conversations range across all sorts of topics including our adventures today and the Mayan ruins that others have visited at Caracol and Cahul Pech while we were in the jungle. 

At our end of the table we discuss the rise of Presbyterian evangelism funded by the CIA, who were determined to split the uniting power of the Catholic Church in Latin America, and how the drug cartels now launder their money through its rich and powerful preachers and hoodwinked congregations. Aquilino’s description of how the reality of the drugs trade blights the ordinary lives of millions of people in this part of the world is sobering and tragic. 

Thankfully the margaritas flow and everyone returns to the hotel happy and ready for yet more adventures tomorrow, when we will cross into our third country, Guatemala.