Belizean Mayan Food and Mayan Ruins in San Ignacio Belize!

Today in San Ignacio we're focusing on Mayan culture, Mayan food, Mayan temple ruins, but first we have a little bit of an issue with our car. I don't know how we're going to get out of this one. On the border with Guatemala in Belize, as you can see, I'm trying to lift the car up and take the tire off, but we're very fortunate. It's like a Mayan historical site, right? An ancient site. We're going to walk in here and see what this place is about. On the way to the Mayan village. Let's see what happens. Yeah, we got a flat tire, unfortunately. Yeah, I know. It's out of nowhere. We're like, what just happened here? So this is incredible. What is this place? Well, this is a family project. The owner, Mr. Jose Magana, he's actually building the site himself. So this is a Mayan site This is amazing. I mean, all the different like layers here, plus that's all carved. It's a carved rock. So he uses the same raw material from him taking off this hill. Slowly he's, you know, taking apart the hill, taking the rocks, and then through those rocks he sculpts them, right? So he has a face there. Over there we have some like, it's part of like, almost like the Mayan calendar from what I've seen, right? Yes. All different like calligraphy and stuff. And this is the slate that they use to do all the stuff, the souvenirs. The name of the site is Satunich, which Mr. Jose is doing it to preserve and promote the Mayan culture, to show the people that we, the Mayans, are still living here. It's just that we are getting used to the modern world now. So guys, come here. It's only five, five Belizean dollars to enter, right? Five Belizean dollars. Get a few photos with this guy. Beautiful. Love what he's doing here. It's only like a 10-minute drive from San Ignacio on the way to San Antonio. All right, so we're gonna make some tortillas now. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. We good? Yeah, we good, yes. It's crazy. We got a flat tire in the best place on this road to get a flat tire in front of a modern Mayan ruin that we would never have visited if we didn't have that flat tire. So it was great. And they also have like an observation tower over there, so you can go up there as well. But right now we're headed to have some lunch. We're gonna see some pottery. We're gonna see a big mix of things here, Mayan culture in Belize. Spoke too soon. We got a second flat tire. It's okay, it's okay. That's like, God's just like testing us, you know? It's okay, it's okay. We'll get there. Will we survive? Will we survive? We finally made it into San Antonio. We're coming here to the Women's Coop. That's right next door to this school, big school here. It's an elementary school. Over here we have the Women's Coop. Thank you. Very good, very good. I'm Cindy. Pleasure, nice to meet you. I'm David. Yes. Welcome. Nice to meet you too. Nathan. Nathan. Yes, nice to meet you. Hello. Morning, how you doing? I'm doing good, and you? Very good. For making a tortilla, we support the dough with this hand and I turn it with the other hand, and I make my tortilla. So we'll go to the fire where I put my tortilla. It's ready. It starts the water to boil. I can see the water comes. That means that my dough is ready to be turned. Whenever I have my tortilla this way, I can eat my tortilla and taste the taste of the corn that it has. I'm adding a little bit of coconut oil and salt, and this is a traditional way of tasting. By the fire. My back's on fire. This is different, huh? So you should put coconut oil, a little bit of sugar. Salt. Salt. Yes. Tasty. Nice and smoky. The sauce is super, super nice with this. Good contrast in flavors. Yes. Coconut. You don't really taste a lot of coconut like the way you would if you had it with water, but you just have a little bit in there. It's unique. Yes. From start to finish. Here I have a corn porridge, and this is made with the same dough. This is corn porridge. Oh, but she added sugar for sure because it's sweet. Nice. Yesterday, I tried it a little thicker, and I also tried it like super liquidy. This one's like in between. It's not too thick, not too liquidy. It's nice. The sugar though, you need the sugar. If not, it's too bland. So next up, we're going to see them making some pottery. So you guys make pottery here. It's been a minute. You know, I've seen pottery being done in churches. I saw it in Greece. I saw it in a few different places in the Middle East. Here we go. The clay, right? Yes. And we have Mr. Mateo, and she's the one that will be... Oh, she's the one. Yes. This is our friend who does the clay. Over here, I'll be placing this piece of clay on top of this. So this would serve as a glue for me when I'm putting baked beans on top of it. Watch the base. Yes. Okay. Over here, and then I place my center there. I wet my hands, and I try to center. I'll be making a little ball, but I have to center it before I make anything on the wheel. I've been here since 2006, but the wheel is something that we just use as for practicing. When we're making a piece of art, then we try to make it all by hand. When we feel that it's centered, then we can start opening it. It's beautiful. I place my thumb on top over here. So as I opened in here, then I mark a base here. I'll be using this piece of clay for forming my bowl. I always keep my hands wet. Pretty cool. Yeah. So the bowl is on the top? On the top, yes. The bowl keeps on the top. It's just a way of how we learned to make pieces to produce. Because from this one here, I can make maybe three or three small bowls from this piece of clay that I have here. And this would help me not to be getting out of my seat all the time and picking up pieces of clay. As you can see, this would be my bowl. This is just the first step of forming a piece. After I've done this, what I will have to do, I will cut it. Wow. The first thing I have to do is wet my hands. Keep them nice and wet. Feels good. Okay, so you see where we have the base here? You just need to press here at the edge like that. Yes, with your hand, your left hand. So keep it, yeah. Thumbs together. Press. Third time's a charm, right? I'm hoping we can get this one here. I'm trying. Not easy. You've had practice. I'm pushing hardcore down. You gotta like slowly shape it. Like that. Cool. Okay, so the Women's Cooperative started back in 2001 with an initiative to preserve Mayan culture in this area of Belize. And obviously here, what they did is they made a bunch of different things, right? You got bases, you got bowls, you got cups, jars. This is like water, you know, hot rocks. The difference of our pottery is that we are using the same local pigments that we extract from clay. We're not using any chemicals for giving colors to our pottery. This piece, we just finished it last night as well. As you would see, the colors are natural colors that we have there, just as how our ancestors used to make it before. Let's go. That was fun. Next up, back to the kitchen. Over here, we will be preparing an appetizer, which we will make it out of a wild vegetable, which we call pacaya, mostly known as pacaya, which is a Camadorian plant. And the vegetable of this is what we get. We roast it on the fire, directly on the charcoal. And then when it pops out, we just peel it off and we extract the vegetable from inside. So from here, we will dice it into pieces, mix it with onions and cilantro, and some ground pepper with lime juice. And this is what we will be adding for your corn chips to have as an appetizer. So we're going to have an appetizer. We're also going to have the main course chorizo mixed with the pico de gallo, no? And that's it. You put it out. Yes, this is what we will put. This is hot, really hot. This is what we get, and this is what we will be serving. The ultimate vegan nacho. So good. You don't stop feeding me. Our challenge over here is to make you get fat. I'm feeling it. Add some of the spice. You got coriander, onion as well. And you mash it all, right? Easy. She burns her hands. I don't burn my hands anymore. I'll fry this just a little while because this is already smoked. You see this is roasted already. This is already dried on the fire. This is already done. It's done? Yes. In Maya we say ehua. So chorizo on top of tortillas. Smoked and then fried. Yes. These look so good. I can't wait for these chorizo little yummy, yummy tortillas. So this is called ehua. Ehua means blue corn in my language. But inside we have chorizo, we have pico de gallo. The chorizo is a traditional chorizo, longaniza that we marinate. It's a pork meat. It's pork meat. And a lot of fresh vegetables inside. And I eat it like this? Herbs. And also we use the gut, the fresh gut from the pig. The smokiness. It's delicious. Oh wow. It crumbles. Yes, you can feel the flavor. You feel so much flavor in here. I love the blue tortilla. Nice tomato salsa. Very fresh. Yes, you could taste the freshness of the vegetables. So I'm gonna get some of this pepper. Just like this. It does remind me of dishes I've had in Mexico. Now I just added some of the spice so let's see how that goes. Now it's like creamy because of cheese. Pick everything up like that. Oh I'm in love with this dish. It's so good. So unique. So is this like only found in San Antonio? Yes. Yes. This is our recipe. This is our taste that we give to it. I love it. Everything that you're having it's homemade. It's all homemade. It's all made over here. All fresh ingredients from the garden. The chorizo, the longaniza, it's fresh. It's like the ultimate Mayan taco right here. Mayan nachos. Mayan nachos. It's so good. So we're gonna build a few more for that nice smoky fried chorizo. I love it so much. I'm gonna add some more here. And you don't have to use your hands but that is the way. It falls apart. I love it. So now you know you have to try a ehua. Yummy taco with all these ingredients. I love the pork here. You and your family are too kind. Everybody here is so nice. Thank you very much. Wow. Classic. Look at that. It's like the Indian way right? We're back to India right now. Los indios hacen esto. You know what I love about this is that we haven't tried either one of these on this trip. And we started to get a little repetitive in terms of corn tortillas you know with same like five dishes. This is different. This is unique. Right here we have dessert. So what are these balls called? Bombolos. Bombolos. Bombolos. So in Italian we have bombolone. It's another thing but this looks good. This bombolos is made from sweet potato. Inside it have pumpkins. Also we will put some syrup on top. Oh my god what a bomb. It's like a donut but less sweet. This is made from sweet potato. Yeah it's crumbly inside but has a donut texture on the outside. Crispy. I love the sugar syrup. So that's the inside. Sweet potato. But it's nice. It reminds me of a more Indian nostalgia. They like sugar syrup on everything. Is it coming out? These are addictive. Nice sweet plantain balls. Wow the pumpkin. So Nae was like this is like gulab jamun. Like yeah it is like gulab jamun. Thank you guys. Thank you. We appreciate it. We'll see you soon okay. Food was amazing. Adios. Love the food. Love the pottery. All right. After about a half hour drive we made it here to the ancient site. We actually have to get on this ferry across and on this side of the river you have all these boats here. Whoa. It was a nice little ferry ride. Took less than 30 seconds. Where are we right now? We're at Sonantunich Stone Lady. Discovered in 1881 by Sir Alfred Maloney and because of his name the first name of the site was then attribute to the site as Mount Maloney. We are reaching to the northeast causeway where the ruler constructed this causeway to introduce visitors to the main plaza. So we just passed the throne room. Next up we're making our way up this staircase with trees. And the trees in the staircase. We're gonna be here for roughly about an hour so bring some water, bring some walking shoes, good sneakers and prepare for the sun. Sunblock. 32 building 3 plaza. We have plaza 1, plaza 2, plaza 3 inside the palace area. Right here we have three plazas. Yes and 32 buildings. When the ruler constructed this building, he constructed it in one massive construction and divided two plazas with two smaller plazas and a clarion calculation of the powerful kingdom Naranjo. Yeah and what happened is when the Mayans left this place the forest consumed it so it got completely taken over by bush. This is really intense. It's like you just keep going running. Wow. These are hard. So I've been I haven't been to Copan in Honduras. That's something I gotta see one day. Get lost in this Mayan temple. Hands and feet like this going up to the god they're about to worship right? Just like that. Wow what a structure man. This is insane. I mean I've been to Tikal which is huge and it's right there crossing the border. This is massive. So it's the second largest man-made structure in Belize. Yeah. Excavating here they found a stiller with the original name of the site according to the paragraph of Nicolai Groove. The original name of the site is Katwitsa, a Yucatan man-world. Katwitsa and Witsumi Mountain. Great. Pretty stressless down. This is the east street that we see here. Around 800 AD were graced the four corners of the building. Today we only have the east and have the west. What is it like calligraphy? It's like writing inside. The original is one meter behind it buddy because hurricane breaked it right. Gotta be in shape for this. So what we see behind here is known as a Adencia at the time that the Mayan living here folks the Mayan civilization. This Adencia there has a cause we are connecting group D since Adencia was where they control the traffic from group D. Group C due to minimal excavation is a staging preparation area before they get into the castillo or into the plaza. Ritual activities and ceremony. Deep. Gotta be in shape. Just don't look down right? They use limestone, concrete so you get stronger. Wooden beam. Wow the views bro. These are epic. Big house. A view 130 feet above the plaza. Well that was beautiful. Yeah. From there we have great views surrounding you know 360 views of the entire area. Just be careful guys there's no railing here. No railing anywhere so you got to really watch your step. This is the bar port here at Solantunich. At the time the ancient Mayan lived here both will wall will be much steeper. They also has a hoop that built like that and the hoop then the ball would not be able to touch with hands your feet elbow hip and knees. Pretty cool so basically soccer and NBA doesn't make any sense. So that's it for the Mayan ruin. Now we're gonna cross the river again and go to this beautiful market. There's a lot of vendors. I'm gonna go look for a mask. They accept credit cards which is great because I have no more cash on me. Okay so right here we have a shop here they have some I'm really here for the mask. You've been waiting for me you know what because she was waiting for me so patiently. I'm coming to you. How are you? How are you? Good. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. I love your mask. They're all beautiful. This is Mayan style so and these are done in the south right? Yeah so the south different uh you know there's three different groups of Mayans here and the southern ones are the ones that do these right? We have non-stop bracelets jewelry. Yeah we have shot glasses. Shot glasses. Minions and backpacks. Calendar in slate. I'll hand carve in the village on the south of stone that we found in the mountain. Have the medicine goddess the corn god. So I'm taking two pieces of slate. I'm taking the toucan which is a national bird and then right here we have a smoking lord of a buddy that likes this. He's gonna love this actually. Smoking shell. Smoking shell. There's so many nice pieces though. It's like it's infinite how many nice ones there are. Look at this. This is the tapir. The national animal of Belize is the tapir. Very nice and it's all made by hand on slate. That's the one thing we didn't get a chance to see in the strip which hopefully we'll see tomorrow. It's hand carving by the way you can pay a credit card if you want to and that was our adventure here today. We did Mayan Mayan Mayan Mayan. Everything from food to ancient archaeological sites and then crafts right. So if you want to you can buy all this and support the community right. So they have bags. They have like nice blankets. They have bracelets. Put one of these on my head right. No that looks bad. I'm joking here. But guys I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did thumbs up. Comment below. Subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content. I'll see the next one here in Belize. Gracias Amiga. Gracias.