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Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave: Explore the Mysterious Mayan Underworld and Enjoy a Local Lunch
4.9
154 Ratings
San Ignacio
Embark on a thrilling adventure to Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave, the mysterious Mayan underworld. Swim through crystalline waters, explore hidden chambers, and enjoy a local lunch.
Embark on a thrilling adventure to Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave, the mysterious Mayan underworld. Swim through crystalline waters, explore hidden chambers, and enjoy a local lunch.
Duration:
9 hours
Cancellation:
24 hours
Highlights
- ATM Cave Belize- Actun Tunichil Muknal - an hour and twenty minutes drive will take us to the parking lot. your experienced guide leads your group on an easy 45-minute hike to the cave. Walk along the bank of the Roaring River, which you’ll cross three times before arriving at the cave entrance. To prepare your group to enter the cave, your guide…
- ATM Cave Belize- Actun Tunichil Muknal - an hour and twenty minutes drive will take us to the parking lot. your experienced guide leads your group on an easy 45-minute hike to the cave. Walk along the bank of the Roaring River, which you’ll cross three times before arriving at the cave entrance. To prepare your group to enter the cave, your guide provides a historical overview and safety briefing. The water passage allows you to splash and play as you wade through the water, which may come up to your ankles, knees, waist and even neck . sometimes requiring you to swim. At one point, you’ll climb up to a ledge to enter one of the most attractive parts of the cave, where archeologists have recorded more than 1,000 pieces of pottery and 14 human sacrifices. To explore this chamber, you’ll be required to remove your shoes in order to protect the natural surroundings, including impressive formations like rock columns, stalactites, stalagmites, citrines and flowstones. your guide will share fascinating details about ancient Mayan rituals and ceremonies that once took place deep under the earth.
What's Included
- Local guide
- Hotel pickup and drop-off within San Ignacio Town
- Use of all necessary equipment
- Bottled water
- Lunch
- Local guide
- Hotel pickup and drop-off within San Ignacio Town
- Use of all necessary equipment
- Bottled water
- Lunch
What's Not Included
- Gratuities
- Hotel pick-up and drop-off outside of San Ignacio Town
- Gratuities
- Hotel pick-up and drop-off outside of San Ignacio Town
Additional Information
Explore the hidden chambers and crystalline waters of the Mayan underworld at Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM), featured in National Geographic! Swim into the mysterious cave, which the ancient Mayas considered to be a portal to the underworld, known as Xibalba. This day trip from San Ignacio includes a 1.5-hour round-trip hike in Tapir Nature Reserve and…
Explore the hidden chambers and crystalline waters of the Mayan underworld at Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM), featured in National Geographic! Swim into the mysterious cave, which the ancient Mayas considered to be a portal to the underworld, known as Xibalba. This day trip from San Ignacio includes a 1.5-hour round-trip hike in Tapir Nature Reserve and lunch at the cave entrance. Climb, crawl, swim and play in the water passage as you enter the caverns, and delight in the refreshing waters of the Roaring River before and after your spelunking adventure.
- Minimum height requirement is 40 inches
- It is recommended that you wear closed-toe shoes, comfortable clothing that can get wet, a change of clothes and bug spray.
- Hotel pick up and drop off is for hotels within San Ignacio town limits. For hotels outside of San Ignacio, a surcharge applies.
- Pair of socks is required as portions of the cave shoes are removed.
- No cameras allowed
Location
43 Burns Avenue
Burns Avenue
Unit 2
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
Customer Ratings
4.9
(154 Ratings)
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Steffani_h
Aug 15, 2024
Amazing- do it! - This was an incredible once in a lifetime experience. Swimming through the Mayan cave and maneuvering through rocks. Stunning formations! Sooo many artificers in one place. And our guide Glis was very helpful, knowledgeable and funny!
Review provided by Viator
Adelle_k
Jul 28, 2024
Goonies adventure - This was such a memorable experience. Our guides were very knowledgeable, Abraham was so patient guiding us through the cave. Highly recommend for anyone searching for an Indiana Jones adventure. It is a highly active and athletic activity. Recommend wearing proper footwear and being Comfortable in water
Review provided by Viator
Fern
Jul 9, 2024
ATM Caves with Belize Family Adventures was a total highlight - Actun Tunichil Muknal or ATM Caves were amazing thanks to our excellent informative good-humoured guide Gliss from Belize Family Adventures who kept us all safe with his expert guiding This tour required us to wear hard hats with head torches for most of it, walking on the flat on wide well cleared jungle paths for approx 1km to the cave entrance from the park entrance wading through three parts of a river, swimming (the only swimming required) for about 5m at the cave entrance and walking (plenty uneven terrain) and scrambling over rocks wading through water for more than 50% of the trail inside the cave, squeezing between rocks (quite tight in a few parts) for approx 2.5km inside the cave and the same in reverse to return to the park entrance Gliss pointed out the artefacts, some skeletal remains of the humans sacrificed and gave us a good outline of the Mayan culture Cameras including mobile phones are banned (only photos I took are of the guide Gliss and the huge cornfield en route) The only thing cave visitors are permitted is a water bottle that must not be left behind
Be prepared to be wet throughout the cave visit and a bit cold when deep inside the cave
Lunch prepared by the Belize Family Adventures staff was excellent Belizian rice with beans, chicken stew and coleslaw, a salad for the vegans/vegetarians This tour averages about 5h and most cave visitors are ravenous at the end Transport to and from our hotel was included We had an excellent driver Jamed who shared his knowledge about plants trees and agriculture in the region
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Megan_p
Jun 25, 2024
Amazing experience - This was an amazing experience and I am so glad we went even though I was slightly hesitant at first since I don't love heights or small spaces! Our guide was exceptionally knowledgeable and made sure that everyone in our group was comfortable with each portion of the experience. The lunch afterwards was a wonderful meal of chicken and beans and rice and was greatly appreciated after our morning of hiking, swimming and climbing!
Review provided by Viator
Jamie_s
Jun 13, 2024
Unique Experience @ ATM - What a fun day full of history and adventure. Had great interactions with Ben & Abraham - both men made the day easy and fun. Definitely recommend this tour.
Review provided by Viator
Gabriella_p
Jun 1, 2024
Amazing experience! - Amazing experience! Fernando our guide was awesome and very informative. We weren’t 100% sure what we were getting ourselves into but it was by far the highlight of our trip. Lunch after was delicious as well!
Review provided by Viator
Bruce_s
May 19, 2024
Great memorable ATM tour - Manuel helped make it a wonderful tour. He was very helpful when needed, pointed out beautiful cave formations, did a great job pointing out Mayan artifacts, and explaining their culture. It was a very memorable day.
Review provided by Viator
Ceebeekalso
May 3, 2024
Unique and challenging experience - ATM is definitely a unique experience. Our guide was very knowledgeable and interesting. The after cave lunch was quite good. A perfect ending to a long, tiring excursion. Because I’m a regular hiker, I thought this excursion would be pretty easy. While it wasn’t strenuous, it was more of a workout than I expected because of rock scrambles in the cave. Helpful hints….I could have used a shoe better than my very lightweight water shoes. A few hours of walking across rocky terrain plus walking in socks in part of the cave gave me some very sore feet. If you’re subject to motion sickness, don’t sit in the back of the transport van. The dirt road leading to ATM will test you.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Wintercoll
Apr 24, 2024
Awesome. - We had Ben as our guide. He was one of the first ten guides that led tours through the cave. He was very knowledgeable and clearly cares deeply about the cultural significance of caves. The cave was awesome. The water was just the right temperature. There were tight spaces and a far amount of scrambling but as a relatively fit couple in our 60s we had no trouble keeping up and took a far amount of ribbing about our age. Ours was a group of eight-- a nice, couple from Calgary and a sweet family of four from New York. They were great caving companions and Lily, the cook, made an awesome lunch. Definitely glad we did it and well worth the price for the experience. In case it's not made clear to you...you need socks...not water socks for part of the cave. Going barefoot is not an option if you care about preserving the caves interior....they are trying to protect the ground from the oils on your feet. Feel very fortunate to have gone while there are still a reduced number of guides leading tours. My understanding is that they will be doubling the number of visitors soon and I fear it will be overcrowded in the cave and disrupt the artifacts.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Samantha_m
May 14, 2024
Beautiful cave, not a great guide experience - The cave itself was amazing and well worth the trip. Specific to this outfit, there were some unusual experiences that made parts of the trip slightly uncomfortable. Our main complaint was with our guide who seemed to be treating women as less than capable of completing the same physical feats as the men in our group. He did not take the time to ask people what they were comfortable doing, instead making assumptions based on our body shapes and sizes while not helping those who actually needed it. He also made some sexist jokes that weren’t appealing, including the trope about four rings in marriage and bad mothers-in-law. I would have rather just focused on the history of the cave and people that used it.
Review provided by Viator
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