Belize · BZ

Cerros Mayan Ruins

Cerros—also known as Cerro Maya—is the one Maya archaeological site in Belize that sits right on the water. Spread across a peninsula at the mouth of the New River where it spills into Chetumal Bay, in Corozal District in the far north of the country, the ruins face directly onto the Caribbean coastline, the way the city that built them once did. Grass-covered pyramids rise within a few metres of the bay, and the central precinct is ringed by the faint curve of a man-made canal that once separated the ceremonial heart of the settlement from its farming fields and homes. The site reached its height in the Late Preclassic period, centuries before the great Classic-era cities, when it grew from a modest village of farmers, fishermen and traders into a planned town with kings, temples and plazas. Today its restored mounds, broad stairways and—above all—its enormous painted stucco masks make it one of the most atmospheric and least crowded stops in northern Belize, an ideal pairing with the nearby lagoon site of Lamanai or a detour from the Corozal–Chetumal road.