I sit on the curb at the bus station in San Ignacio Town, Belize. The sidewalk is raised a foot (30 cm) above the street, so I’m half sitting, half squatting, watching people, waiting for my wife, Mahrie, who is shopping nearby. Behind me several young guys huddle around a food stand, one working, the others hanging out. Laughing, they shout to young men standing around the competing food stand across the street, “Shaddup!” “Shaddup youselfs!” the competitors shout back.

With 13,000 residents, San Ignacio and its sister town, Santa Elena, make up the third largest community in Belize; Belize City is the largest city, with a population of 58,000. San Ignacio, the capital of the Cayo District, is located approximately 72 miles (115 km) east of Belize City.

The food stands at the bus station serve walk-up customers, but mainly they stock the trays of boys who sell to bus passengers. The buses come in two varieties; express buses are large-windowed, air-conditioned, and carry passengers from one bus station to another; regular buses are repurposed school buses that stop for anyone who hails them. Either way, the ride includes music, whatever the driver likes.

Many towns and villages throughout Belize are accessible by bus from San Ignacio.

The boys load their trays and hold them up to passengers reaching through the windows. Customers pay with change dropped down. This lemonade stand–style of commerce flourishes despite a handwritten sign taped to the windshield of buses stating, “No Eating! No Drinking!” In Belize, it seems to me that rules of this sort are guidelines posted more for principle than result.

Sitting on the edge of the sidewalk gives me a close-up view of people passing by. Here comes an old abuela, shopping bag in one hand, the other holding her granddaughter’s hand. Both abuela and granddaughter are dressed up, perhaps because it’s Saturday, market day.

The grandmother is short, thick, and sturdy as a water barrel, her brown skin darkened and etched with wrinkles by a life in the sun. The lines radiating back from her eyes are made deeper by the broad smile she beams down at the girl.

The granddaughter is about 6 years old and, like her grandmother, wears a bright, multi-colored skirt and a white blouse with beaded decorations around the neck. There are beads in her hair, splashing color against its dark richness. She strides quickly on skinny legs, taking two steps for every one her grandmother takes.

They’re obviously delighted to be dressed up and out on the town together. I’m struck by the idea that some 60 years ago the abuela was the girl and 60 years hence the little girl will be the old abuela. Some of the intervening steps are evident around me — an attractive young woman in heeled sandals and tight-fitting jeans flirting with the food-stand boys as she walks by; a young mother with three children, one in her arms. It seems impossible she’ll accomplish anything in town; the children require all her attention.

San Ignacio spreads out over seven hills clustered around the Macál River, steep, tall hills that present beautiful vistas of the river valley and into Guatemala, a short distance west.

When Mahrie emerges from the shop with bottles of water to quench our thirst while walking under the tropical sun, we set out on foot to climb one of these hills to visit ruins of a city built by Mayas during the Pre-Classic (2000 B.C. to A.D. 250) and Classic (A.D. 250 to A.D. 1000) periods. The Maya constructed the oldest buildings here before Socrates walked the streets of Athens.

This ancient site is called Cahal Pech, which is both unfortunate (meaning “place of ticks”) and anachronistic, as the name was given in 1950 when the site was a pasture during the first archeological studies.

Some of the buildings are partially restored and show the scale of the original construction. Find a cool courtyard among the ruins and rest on the steps and you’ll form an impression of the human spirits who built these structures, and their love of symmetry and grandeur.