Stone Lady

Xunantunich means "stone lady" in Mayan. It is also one of the most well preserved Mayan ruins in Central America.

The ancient architecture locates near the town of San Ignacio in Belize, close to the Guatemala boarder. To reach it, a little off-roading, hiking and river-crossing is in order. But the destination is definitely worth the sweat.

Geographically, all Mayan temples were placed on the highest grounds in their vicinities. On top of that, they were built as tall as technically possible, and oriented in ways relative to the stars. All that efforts so they could be close to the gods.

It is simply breath-taking when you look down from top of one of those things. More so than looking down from a modern highrise that might be several times taller. Somehow it made me think that it is human nature to want to rise above nature, doesn't matter what time and place.