Will be staying at the Lodge at Chaa Creek in December and am interested in doing the ATM tour. Recommendations on tour operators would be greatly appreciated!
Will be staying at the Lodge at Chaa Creek in December and am interested in doing the ATM tour. Recommendations on tour operators would be greatly appreciated!
Belize Magnificent Tours is also awesome, just like Pacz.
The two aforementioned tour operators are both excellent ! You had better make your reservation asap. Many tour operators are fully booked for some dates in December.
I've been reading that due to some inexplicably careless behavior of a tourist the government may stop the ATM tour. Is that true? Only takes one nitwit to ruin it.
People have been saying for years that eventually ATM will need to be closed. One tourist stepped on a skull a few years ago. More recently, someone dropped a camera and crushed some artifacts, not sure if it was a skull or not. Cameras are no longer allowed.
Maximum Adventure Tours
Is this a tour of local bank machines ??
That sure makes it easy to remember, and to say !. ATM stands for Actun Tunich Muchnal(sp). It is a Maya sacred cave where there are many artifacts, chambers, and human skeletal remains. Quite an adventure !!
I'm sure it won't be closed, unless something else is destroyed. 6 months ago, a camera was dropped on a skull. The tours are already filling up, and the price has gone up, and even though pre-booking is more expensive(sometimes by a lot), if you want it on a certain date in this busy season, then you'll need to book ahead. There are a few less guides this year from last year, and they haven't offered new classes for ATM in close to a decade.
On a side note, there are plenty of other caves, and some, imho, blow away ATM. Mountain Cow is awesome, and Actun Chapat is really cool too. There's also Offering Cave. And if you do Caracol, you'll get to walk around Rio Frio Cave, which is cool since it's so big, yet open ended.