Visiting Lamanai Mayan Ruins in Belize

The Summer of 2023 was all about visiting ancient cities and ruins! I already recapped my visit to Ephesus, Turkey. I have yet to write about visiting Pompeii and all of the ruins in Athens. But today, I’m sharing my experience visiting the Mayan ruins of Lamanai in Belize.

Getting There

On our last Carnival Cruise, I was excited to visit Belize for the first time. We booked an excursion to Lamanai Mayan ruins.  Due to the shallow water around the port, cruise ships must anchor around 5 miles away. The tender boat ride took around 25 minutes to get to shore.

From the port, getting to Lamanai involved a bus ride followed by a boat ride on a river. The bus ride was about an hour long. Lamanai wasn’t that far from the port, but the condition of the roads in some parts required it to go fairly slow.

On the bus ride, our tour guide shared a lot of interesting facts about Belize. I was surprised to learn that it was a British Colony until 1981 and used to be called British Honduras (I’m sure I learned that in school, but forgot). There are fewer than 500,000 people living in the entire country. Locals hunt and eat iguanas. It’s the only Central American country where English is the official language.

The bus took us to a large restaurant/bar on a river that looked like it was made for large tour groups. This place had water we could buy for our trek inside Lamanai. From there, we boarded a boat to head down the river to Lamanai. We saw quite a few cranes and crocodiles.

After about 30 minutes on the speed boat, we arrived at the Lamanai dock.

Touring Lamanai

A few more local tour guides joined our group to show us around Lamanai. It was a very hot day, so I was thankful that Lamanai has a lot of shade. We could see and hear the howler monkeys in the trees.

The city of Lamanai dates back to 1500 BC. Amazing! Only three major structures have been uncovered, and even those structures are not fully excavated. Much of the city is still waiting to be resurfaced. When Belize was a British colony, apparently the officials took a lot of treasures from the ruins and put them on display in museums in the UK. The locals are a bit bitter about this.

With our tour guide, we walked along this jungle trail until BOOM! There is a large clearing with the Jaguar Temple.

It’s called the Jaguar Temple because there are remnants of a jaguar animal structure on each side of the temple. And yes, there are jaguars in the area. Much of the Jaguar Temple is still underground. We could not go inside or climb on this temple.

The next temple we saw was the High Temple. It’s quite tall and impressive.

The last temple, the Mask Temple, was a bit further along the trail. This is the only structure we could climb on.

The steps were very narrow, and you had to climb them sideways. The tour guides recommend that only people who aren’t afraid of heights attempt to climb it. That meant I was out. My daughter climbed it, though.

The trail to see all 3 structures at Lamanai is about 1 mile long with just a few steps. Due to the temperatures, we were all dripping with sweat.

We loaded up on the boat to go back to the restaurant. Once there, we were served the most delicious meal of chicken, rice and beans. It’s the best rice and beans I’ve ever had. Or maybe it just tasted so good because it was 2:30 p.m. at that point and we were so hungry that anything would have tasted good.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed my excursion to Lamanai. Unlike the other ruins we visited this summer, Lamanai has a lot of wildlife around it due to its location in the jungle. Also, it was a lot less crowded than Ephesus, Pompeii and the Acropolis. Getting photos without people in the background was easy. If you’re ever in Belize, I recommend visiting Lamanai.