Exploring The Maya Site of Altun Ha - Belize

I'll tune ha and We're being a little incognito because we're not exactly sure what the rules are and filming it did say no filming out at the front, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. Sometimes signs are up and order to be ignored But Right from the entrance here. You can already see A lot of the site and the ruins here. Looks like they've been doing a lot of work over the years Let's get in here and check it out Hey guys, we are here at altin ha and this is the temple of the sun god here The site is actually broken into a plaza a and a plaza b. We're in plaza b the entire area covers about three square miles The site itself is located about an hour north of belize city and it's really not that hard to get here We had no problem finding the place It's truly truly an impressive site They believe that this place was active from about 900 bc to a thousand ad And housed about probably about 10 000 people lived here. They estimate at the time It was a major trading hub for stuff like jade and different types of stones And this is uh, the largest building that they have unearthed on site and it is absolutely awesome This is what I love to do and i'm really happy to be here So we're going to show you guys the rest of the complex and work our way over to plaza A we're doing this a little backwards to follow us along Behind me here in plaza b is the temple of the green tomb This temple was named that way because they just found one one tomb here containing 300 different artifacts So talking about jewelry pottery jade all sorts of different stuff in here A lot of which was items traded here between different mesoamerican cultures throughout the area all the way up to teotihuacan This is the largest temple here in plaza b And you can walk up it we'll show you here in a second. There's an access point around the back, which is actually really cool so You can see I think A lot of this would have been Perhaps some of the original stonework a lot of the places you can see where they've done restoration um, they put things back the way they believe that it was but You know, it can never be exactly The way it was so when you get down to stuff where it's really uncovered and down that's what I really like to see where the original stonework was i'm getting eaten by bugs and You can see the the years of wear and everything on it. You know, that's really interesting to me So this is a good example of what I was just talking about, you know, you can tell that this has been restored This is masonry holding the uh stone together. So it's you know cement and stuff like that Um and uh, there's a clear difference between Here and what we were looking at just a second ago And some of these different spots That you can tell our original stonework and where then where it's been restored most sites are like this So we are in plaza a now Um, there's a couple relatively large structures here. One's unearthed. This one looks restored um And most of these have access points around the back so you can actually walk up behind them And then go up to the top which is actually really unique because a lot of the sites In mexico and some a lot of different places that i've been You can't go up to the top or if you're used to you can't anymore So it's really cool being able to get up to the top of these structures and see what uh, They might have seen from you know, their perspective back in the day. It's really interesting So this is really really cool. Like I said before um Most of these sites these mayan sites and stuff. You can't come up to the top of the structures. You can't actually get on them And it's a really cool spot. Now while the site itself is about three square miles What you can actually walk around and see Uh doesn't encompass that much area. So this is a great great historical example here of Just an inner look into the mayan civilization its culture and how a lot of the different sites were used and operated Within the civilization. It's a really cool place So guys we are outside of altun ha Um, just to let you know, there is a good spot to stop and eat here. It is The maya crystal skull we stopped here for a good lunch. They've got wi-fi which is free and uh, very kind hospitable people Um, they took care of us today also to give you a little bit of information about the site Um, there's a lot of bugs bring some bug spray. Um, you want some good hiking shoes or just good sneakers It's uh 10 us for foreigners to get in and the site took us probably a couple hours But we're filming you could actually run through this site in about an hour hour and a half Depending on how good of shape you're in and if you're going up to the top of each Each actual building or structure here. So it's a great place to come and visit. We enjoyed our time And thank you so much