It's hard to get out of bed knowing your day will be in ruins. Which is why we slept until noon and got the latest start we possibly could. Fortunately, we had breakfast at Pop's to prepare us.
It takes a lot of energy to hike up the nearly-vertical hill to Cahal Pech, and a big plate of Hash Browns was what the doctor ordered. Not worth writing a postcard home about, but they did give us our carb fix for all that climbing.
The carbs lasted for all of Cahal Pech, but we needed the Chaya Pockets as a pre-Xunantunich power-up. Tortillas tucked with sauteed kale-meets-spinach, scrambled eggs and cheese, these protein pockets have even more character than El Castillo.
By the time you actually get to El Castillo after a one-mile trek, you'll inevitably look up and think that you just can't bring yourself to mount another set of high, uneven stairs. That's when the Fried Jacks give you some juice. Impossibly fluffy pockets of puffy fried pastry-dough with an almost mochi-esque texture, these are easily the least ruinous things in Belize.
We packed a full day of ruins into an abbreviated afternoon despite a sluggish start - the brilliance of the Mayans was just too good to miss. And although nothing could have taken away our sense of awe as we sat on the stone throne at Cahal Pech and gazed up at the friezes of El Castillo, it was our breakfast at Pop's that prevented us from passing out before we got there.
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