6 Best Sights in San Ignacio, The Cayo District

Bring a picnic and check out the life's work of ornithologist Ken duPlooy and the personable Judy duPlooy at the 45-acre Belize Botanic Gardens—it's a great way to spend the day. The extensive collection includes hundreds of trees, plants, and flowers from all over Central America. Enlightening tours of the gardens, set on a bank of the Macal River at Sweet Songs Jungle Lodge, are given by local guides who can tell you the names of the plants in Mayan, Spanish, and English as well as explain their varied medicinal uses. If your family is looking for a fun group activity, try out tea-tasting tours or a tamale-making class. An orchid house holds the duPlooys' collection of more than 100 orchid species, and there also is a palm exhibit. The Botanic Gardens also run gardening programs for Belize residents as well as great birding opportunities.

Also called the Rainforest Medicine Trail, this trail was originally developed by natural medicine guru Rosita Arvigo and gives you a quick introduction to traditional Mayan medicine. The trail takes you on a short, self-guided walk through the rainforest on the grounds of Chaa Creek, giving you a chance to study the symbiotic nature of its plant life. Learn about the healing properties of such indigenous plants as red gumbo-limbo and see some endangered medicinal plants. The shop here sells Mayan medicinal products like Belly Be Good and Flu Away.

Just at the western edge of San Ignacio, on a tall hill, is a small, intriguing Maya site, the unfortunately named Cahal Pech ("Place of the Ticks"). You probably won't be bothered by ticks now, however. It's an impressive site, but smaller than others in the area, which makes it more manageable for folks with children or mobility issues (although there are still many uphill treks). It was occupied from around 1200 BC to around AD 900. At its peak, in AD 600, Cahal Pech was a medium-sized settlement of perhaps 10,000 people with some three dozen structures huddled around seven plazas. It's thought that it functioned as a guard post, watching over the nearby confluence of the Mopan and Macal rivers. Find information at the small visitor center and museum, where you may also find a guide.

The Natural History Centre at The Lodge at Chaa Creek has displays on everything from butterflies to snakes (preserved in jars). Outside is a screened-in blue morpho butterfly-breeding center. You can see blue morphos up close here and even peer at their slumbering pupae, which resemble jade earrings. Once you're inside the double doors, the electric-blue beauties, which look boringly brown when their wings are closed, flit about or remain perfectly still, sometimes on your shoulder or head, and open and close their wings to a rhythm akin to inhaling and exhaling. A team of knowledgeable naturalists leads guided tours every hour as you learn about the "Belizean Blue" butterflies, Maya culture, and more. You can combine a visit here with one to the Belize Medicinal Plants Trail.

Near the border of Belize and Guatemala, El Pilar is still being excavated under the direction of archaeologist Anabel Ford and the MesoAmerican Research Center. El Pilar is three times larger than Xunantunich, but because it's at the end of a 7-mile (12-km) rough dirt road, you're likely to have the place to yourself; it gets only a few hundred visitors a year. Excavations of Maya ruins have traditionally concentrated on public buildings, but at El Pilar the emphasis has been on reconstructing domestic architecture—everything from houses to gardens with crops used by the Maya. El Pilar, occupied from 800 BC to AD 1000, at its peak may have had a population of 20,000. Several well-marked trails take you around the site. Because the structures haven't been stripped of vegetation, you may feel as if you're walking through a series of shady orchards.

Don't forget binoculars: in the 5,000-acre nature reserve there's terrific bird-watching.

Behind the main plaza, a lookout grants a spectacular view across the jungle to El Pilar's sister city, Pilar Poniente, on the Guatemalan border. There is a visitor center, the Be Pukte Cultural Center of Amigos de El Pilar, in Bullet Tree Falls (usually open daily 9–5), where you can get information on the site and pay the admission fee. Note that several incidents of robbery have occurred at or near El Pilar. You may want to visit this site on a tour, available from several tour operators in San Ignacio including Crystal Paradise/Birding in Paradise.

Besides thoughtful displays on the Cayo flora and fauna, Tropical Wings, a little nature center, raises about 20 species of butterfly including the blue morpho, owl, giant swallowtail, and monarch varieties. The facility, at The Trek Stop, also has a small restaurant and gift shop, along with cabins.