San Ignacio town is usually referred to as Cayo by locals (this is also the name you'll usually see on buses), the same word that the Spanish use to describe the offshore islands - an apt description of the area, which is set in a peninsula between two converging rivers. The early wave of the Spanish Conquest in 1544 made little impact here, and the area was a centre of rebellion in the following decades. Tipu , a Maya city on the Macal River about 9km south of the present-day town, was the capital of the province of Dzuluinicob, where for years the people resisted attempts to convert them to Christianity. Spanish friars arrived in 1618, but for years afterwards the population continued to practise idolatry - in 1641, Maya priests conducted a mock Mass to express their defiance towards a group of visiting Spanish clerics, and then threw them out. Tipu retained a measure of independence until 1707, when the population was forcibly removed to Lago de PetA©n ItzA? in Guatemala.

Around this time British loggers (Baymen) arrived, seeking mahogany - like many places in modern Belize, San Ignacio probably started life as a logging camp. Spanish influence, never great, was by now in permanent decline, and the British were not interested in converting the remaining Maya - a map of 1787 simply states that the Maya of this general area were "in friendship with the Baymen". In addition to logging, San Ignacio became a centre for the shipment of chicle , the sap of the sapodilla tree and the basis of chewing gum. The self-reliant chicleros , as the collectors of chicle were called, knew the forest intimately, including the location of most, if not all, Maya ruins. When the demand for Maya artefacts sent black-market prices rocketing, some of them turned to looting.

Until the Western Highway was built in the 1930s local transport was by mule or water. It could take ten days of paddling to reach San Ignacio from Belize City, though small steamers later began to make the trip. Nowadays river traffic, which had almost died out, is enjoying something of a revival thanks to the increasing numbers of tourists. Indeed, a good time to visit San Ignacio is at the start of La Ruta Maya canoe race , held annually in early March, when teams of paddlers race all the way to Belize City. Anyone can enter, but local guides always win.