The First Skate Crew To Visit Belize

Jaakko Ojanen, Madars Apse, Angelo Caro and Zack Wallin break themselves off skating the modern cities of the Mayan lands of Guatemala, Belize and Mexico. After skating the colourful spots of Guatemala and visiting the incredible Mayan site of Tikal, now it was time to cross the border into Belize, a country we knew nothing about. A two-hour drive brought us to the border between Guatemala and Belize.

The drive on the Guatemalan side had been quite plain, all of the jungle that we had seen in Tikal gave way to crops, and the land was vast and treeless. Skateboarding in Belize was difficult: they didn’t have didn’t have any locals to show around because there are no locals, nor skate parks either – skateboarding is a very rare sight in Belize. The Mayan civilisation was one of the most important in the pre-Columbian Americas.

Their territory extended from southern Mexico along through Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador; they had a fully developed writing system and an incredibly accurate calendar. But the Mayas are also shrouded in mystery; their sudden disappearance from their main cities right before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors remains unresolved to this day, although several theories exist.