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The Toledo District can be reached by travelling south by car or bus along the Southern Highway (approximately 200 miles from Belize City); and by air via the airstrip in Punta Gorda, a town of less than 4000 people. It is an agricultural and fishing center, and most of its people live in small villages. Hotel accomodations here are in the budget category. Lubaantun and Nearby Mayan Ruins
The Mayan Guesthouse Program Experience If you are planning a trip to this part of Belize, you are probably looking for a rich cultural experience and an adventure, rather than for luxury. And indeed, the Toledo District is the focus of a new kind of ecotourism--the Mayan Guesthouse Program. This unique program is attracting increasing numbers of travelers who want to experience the beauty of unspoiled rainforests and the rich cultural heritage of the Mopan and Ketchi Mayan people of the region. A small but growing number of villages have formed a cooperative program that offers you a unique 24-hours experience. Your experience begins at the Toledo District Maya Guest House office, where you will receive a short orientation about the Mayan culture and the village where you will be staying. You'll also get the eating utensils (plate, bowl, cup, fork and spoon) that you'll be using during your visit. You'll be assigned to the village and a guide will escort you there. You'll sleep at a small guesthouse built in the local thatched-roof style. Guesthouses can accomodate up to eight people. Accomodations are basic (outhouses and showers for men and women, no electricity) but clean. You will have each meal in a different home. Meals are simple but good. A typical lunch might consist of home made tortillas, potatoes, vegetables, and a tasty chicken stew. (Participating villagers are required to attend a food providers workshop, where they are trained to boil all water and follow simple health guidelines.) Local guides will escort you along jungle trails and explain how the villagers grow and harvest food and medicinal herbs and create arts and crafts in traditional Mayan style. You can purchase handmade baskets and other crafts from the village cooperative. You will visit the smal local zoo; and may have the opportunity to observe local religious and cultural celebrations and enjoy traditional Mayan music and dance. You can opt for a two-hour hike through the hills leads to caves covered with ancient Mayan painting. The guesthouse program is a cooperative enterprise, and the participating villages have formed the Toledo Ecotourism Association. Everyone in the village benefits from the profits, which are spent communally for education and health needs. It provides an alternative to slash-and-burn subsistence farming and offers great incentive for preservation of both the rainforest and traditional Mayan culture. Interested visitors can contact the program office at (501) 72-2119. Similar programs are being developed by surrounding communities. A different cultural experience is offered by the Garifuna community of Punta Gorda, the largest town in the Toledo District. Members of this community have created a living museum in the form of recreation of a traditional Garifuna village. The project includes a restaurant, an arts and crafts shop, and an artifact museum. The people of Punta Gorda are in the process of creating a 4-mile nature trail, which begins on the outskirts of Punta Gorda on a bluff overlooking the sea. When completed, it will wind through mangrove swamps and jungles and will include a small zoo featuring local wildlife (parrots, iguanas, crocodiles, armadillos, deer, etc.) It will include a stopoff at a traditional Mayan home, including a farm that will showcase sustainable agricultural methodology, and a traditional East Indian farm run by the descendants of Indian sugar workers. Proceeds from trail fees will be dedicated to development of and education in sustainable agricultural technology. The project will be staffed by students of the Toledo Community College. Dem Dats Doin Farm is another example of a new style of ecotourism: an experimental farm that uses photo-voltaic technology to achieve energy self-sufficiency while farming. The owners have combined the experimental farm with a bed-and-breakfast inn. Their goal is to promote sustainable agricultural development as an alternative to traditional slash-and-burn milpa farming. Nature Reserves, Jungles and Rivers Other Toledo District attractions include lush jungles and trips (by motorboat, canoe or rafts) along the Rio Grande and Temash Rivers, and guided hikes through lush jungles with 100-foot canopies, wild orchids, howler monkeys and iguanas that grow to 7 feet long. Blue Creek Cave is one of the largest underground cave systems in the world, and can take up to two days to walk through (visitors can camp overnight. The Bladen Nature Reserve and the Columbia River Forest Reserve are conisdered to be among Belize's most pristine and untouched rainforest areas. Permits are required for treks into these remote jungles. Entry is by foot only and travelling with a local guide is recommended. The Mopan Mayan village of San Antonio is the site of the traditional Deer Dance, a 9-day traditional Mayan cultural celebration, which takes place in late August and early September. Although this traditional cultural ceremony coincides with a Catholic religious holiday, the Feast of San Luis, its roots are traditional and Mayan. Several Mayan ruins can be found in the Toledo District, including Lubaantun ("Place of the Fallen Stones," so named because it was built without mortar), which is a few miles from the town of Punta Gorda. Nim Li Punit, which has the tallest carved stela found to date in Belize, is approximately 25 miles north of Punta Gorda. Another Mayan ruin site, Uxbenka is built on a hill. All of these ruins can be visited with local guides. Near where the Caribbean meets the Bay of Honduras, there are several small but beautiful cayes: the Sapodilla Cayes, Hunting Caye and Snake Caye. These cayes have beautiful coral sand beaches and abundant sea life, perfect snorkeling locations. There are no hotels, but its possible to camp out or moor a boat for an overnight excursion. Hunting Caye is host to large numbers of nesting sea turtles in late summer.
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