Lamanai

Listen first. Somewhere above you, in the canopy, a deep roar rolls through the trees. It sounds like a large animal, close and angry. It is neither. It is a howler monkey, often a small one, calling across the forest. Around you the air is warm and heavy. The ground is soft with fallen leaves, and the light comes down in green, broken patches. Welcome to Lamanai, an ancient Maya city on the edge of the New River Lagoon.

Most visitors arrive the way traders once did — by water. The boat ride up the New River from the Orange Walk area takes you past mangroves, reed beds and long stretches of quiet brown water. Herons stand still in the shallows. Turtles slide off logs. If you are lucky, you see a crocodile resting near the bank. That journey matters, because this city faced the water. The lagoon was its road, its larder and its link to the wider Maya world.

The name itself comes from the water too. Lamanai is usually translated as "submerged crocodile". Spanish friars wrote it down in the colonial period, and it is one of the few Maya site names that we know from the past. Many ruins in this region carry modern names given by explorers. This one kept something close to its own. Crocodile imagery appears in the art here, so the name fits the place well.

Here is the first thing most visitors miss. Lamanai was not a city that rose and fell in a few centuries. People lived here for a very long time — from well before the time of Christ until after the Spanish arrived. Many great Maya cities in the southern lowlands were largely abandoned around the ninth and tenth centuries. Lamanai kept going. That long story makes it one of the longest occupied Maya sites known to archaeologists.

Much of what we know comes from long excavations led by the archaeologist David Pendergast, working for the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, starting in the 1970s. His teams cleared and studied many of the buildings you walk past today. Before that work, these temples looked like steep, tree-covered hills. Even now, only part of the city has been cleared. Many of the low mounds under the forest around you are unexcavated buildings.

Walk on and you reach the Mask Temple. On its face, two great stone faces look out at you. They show a human face with a headdress, carved and modelled on a scale taller than a person. Look closely at the expression, the heavy eyes and the shape of the ears. The faces you see today are careful replicas. The originals sit protected behind them, so the weather and many visiting hands do not wear them away.

Then comes the High Temple. It rises above the trees, one of the tallest structures at the site, and visitors often climb it. The steps are steep and uneven, so take your time and use your hands. At the top, the reward is the view. The forest stretches out in every direction, and the lagoon shines in the distance. From up here, you can understand why rulers built so high. Height meant power, and it was visible for many kilometres.

Near the centre lies the ball court. The Maya ballgame was played with a heavy rubber ball, and it carried religious meaning as well as sport. Look for the large round stone marker set into the floor of the court. Archaeologists reported a surprising find beneath it — a small vessel containing liquid mercury, placed there as an offering. Nobody is fully sure what it meant. It is a quiet reminder that much of this city still keeps its secrets.

The Jaguar Temple is another highlight. It takes its name from jaguar faces carved on its lower levels. For the Maya, the jaguar was linked to power, the night and the world below. Notice how the building has more than one phase. The Maya often built new temples over old ones, like layers in a cake. So when you look at one temple, you are often looking at several centuries of building at the same time.

Now the story takes a turn. In the sixteenth century, Spanish missionaries arrived and built churches here. You can still find the remains of these colonial churches, close to the Maya buildings. Their stone walls are low now, softened by moss. Records suggest the relationship was not peaceful for long. In the following century, local people rose against Spanish rule. Standing here, you can see two worlds side by side — a Maya plaza and a Christian church.

The second surprise is newer. In the nineteenth century, long after the Spanish left, a sugar mill was built near the lagoon. Today its rusting machinery sits in the forest. One great iron flywheel has been wrapped and lifted by the roots of a large tree. The tree grew around the metal, slowly, year after year. It is a strange and beautiful sight — iron and wood joined together, with the forest winning in the end.

As you walk, keep your eyes on the trees as well as the stones. Lamanai sits inside a protected reserve, and the wildlife is part of the visit. Howler monkeys move through the high branches. Bright birds flash between trunks, and leafcutter ants carry green pieces of leaf across the paths in long lines. The small museum near the entrance shows objects found here, including pottery and carved pieces. It gives the ruins a human scale.

Before you leave, stop for a moment in the shade. Look at the temple nearest to you. Its stones were cut, carried and placed by hand, by people who watched this same lagoon and heard these same monkeys. Notice the smell of damp earth and leaves. Listen for the water birds near the shore. When you walk back to the boat, look behind you once more — the temples will slowly return to the trees.