At a certain point on this trip we realized that we were mostly dealing with relatives of Dr. Awe. I think he's related to everyone in Belize. This is his nephew, who is a guide and a tour operator.

This is in Tunichil Muknal, and on the right and behind, you can see all of the pots that are left in the cave. This is on the tourist route, and you walk up and you can see these things as a tourist. These are thousand-year-old pots left from ceremonies underground.

They were ritually broken—it's not vandalism that's broken all these pots. They were broken on purpose at the end of the ceremony. When I did the Chiquibul [cave] story for [National] Geographic [magazine] I saw a good bit of pottery underground but never anything on this scale. The place is littered with artifacts.

—Photographer Stephen Alvarez