Santa Teresa is located in the Toledo District of Belize and has a population of approximately residents. On this past of the trip, guests are hosted for lunch at the home of a local Mayan family. The Epic Belize trip provides a wonderful insight into how the Mayan people have evolved and adapted to the modern world and this trip is an amazing opportunity to travel and learn in the Belizean rainforest with our Mayan guides.
The winning photograph of our Island Expeditions Beauty of Belize Photo Contest was a beautiful image of a Mayan girl, taken by a guest while visiting Santa Teresa village. What a beautiful little girl! The Mayflower Bocawina National Park is located in the southern district of Stann Creek and has two unexcavated Mayan temple mounds and other unexplored Mayan sites to explore.
If you visit, make sure you visit the information center, located in the plaza area, which includes a brief history of the local ancient Maya. The resort has beautiful traditional thatched cabanas and the same techniques for new roofing is still done in the old fashioned way by our Mayan staff members.
Thatched Cabana at Bocawina Rainforest Resort. Roofing using traditional Mayan techniques at Bocawina Rainforest Resort. We employ local people from the villages and use local Mayan guides to lead many of our trips.
The bones had cut marks on them from tools and date back to somewhere between 11, and 9, years ago. By around 2, BC, the first permanent villages in Belize were established. People began to move away from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to embrace agriculture. It was at this point when evidence first shows that the Mayan civilization began to take hold. A class of craftsmen, merchants, priests, soldiers, and warriors evolved while.
Over the course of the next thousand years, the Maya came to dominate the region. They built great cities and temples, and over of these sites still exist in Belize alone. Cahel Pech, an ancient palace, dates from around the same time. The Maya were very advanced, developing the only known writing system in the Pre-Columbian Americas.
They also made advances in mathematics and astrology. City-states trading with, allying with, and often fighting with each other. After several hundred years, the Mayan civilization collapsed around AD. Historians and scientists are unsure what exactly this collapse. Some say overpopulation or drought. Whatever happened, the Mayan cities of Belize were abandoned and public work projects came to a halt. By the time the first Europeans arrived, the people were there but the grand civilization that they had built was gone.
On his fourth voyage, Christopher Columbus missed the Belize coastline entirely. He hit mainland Central America in Honduras and then sailed south.
Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of the Aztec Empire, passed through Belize in , but he left it alone. Leaving Belize alone became a theme with the Spanish. Consequently, Belize became a refuge for those fleeing from the Spanish elsewhere. One theory is that the coral reefs offshore made it too difficult to reach by sea. Another is that the jungles made it hard for the Spanish conquistadors to break through. Belize became the center of a small rebellion in the early 17th century.
Descendents of the Maya who had fled the Yucatan during the conquest rose up in Tipu, in the west of Belize. Unrest in Tipu continued until the Spanish moved the population to Guatemala in That marked the end of any lukewarm investment that the Spanish had in Belize. While the Spanish were busy ignoring Belize, others were not. The coast of Belize, protected by the barrier reef, started to become a hideaway for pirates.
The 16th and 17th centuries saw British, French and Dutch pirates move in. These men were adventurers, working on behalf of their governments to destabilize the Spanish. Once the pirates had mastered the treacherous waters around the reef, they were able to use Belize as a base. In the British captured the island of Jamaica from the Spanish. This gave them an official base in the western Caribbean as well.
With Belize and Jamaica under their control, the British had begun to make life uncomfortable for Spain. The British arrive The Spanish Empire granted the United Kingdom rights to establish logging camps in the area, but not to set up a colony on this land, which the Spanish Crown wished to maintain theoretical sovereignty over.
While not an official British colony, British use and occupation of the area increased. From September 3 through September 10 a series of battles was fought around the islands and reefs off the Belizean coast, after which the Spanish forces withdrew.
This is known as The Battle of St. Georges Caye, and is celebrated as a national holiday each September The United Kingdom first sent an official representative to the area in the late 18th century but Belize was not formally termed the Colony of British Honduras until It became a Crown Colony in In the 20th century, several constitutional changes were enacted to expand representative government.
Full internal self-government under a ministerial system was granted in January The official name of the territory was changed from British Honduras to Belize in June Independence The government of Guatemala long claimed that Belize was rightfully Guatemalan territory, supposedly inheriting rights to the land from the Spanish Crown.
Fear of invasion by Guatemala long delayed the independence of Belize. Finally the United Kingdom agreed to defend Belize from invasion if necessary after independence; this agreement led to full official independence granted on September 21, , under the leadership of long time Prime Minister and independence advocate George Price. Guatemala refused to recognize the new nation until
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