Day 5

Day 5 - Lamanai Ruins and Boat Ride Up New River With Antonio


Woke up at 7:30 and spent an hour walking along the New River and through the town of Orange Walk. Much more lively than on Sunday. Children going to school, shops open, and people everywhere. Several Mennonites and others selling produce in 'parking' spaces. A feel of a vibrant community. The esteemed and highly recommended naturalist and blood Mayan, Antonio Novelo, picked me up in the boat just after 9:00 right outside the Inn. The day before he mentioned he was expecting a small group of 4 or 5 but we had 14 people in the boat including the driver and Antonio. An observation is that most all tours have a minimum group size needed before it is feasible to have a tour. But there is rarely a maximum group size in this part of the world. They just do what Antonio did and find a bigger boat (or bus) or else a second boat (or bus) and guide (and/or driver).
For the next two hours up the river we enjoyed Antonio's naturalist observations. A few minutes after leaving we spotted our first large crocodile. We saw many more including the smaller one on the left. We also saw numerous birds, bats, iguanas, and plants including the famed Jabiru Stork (largest flying bird in Western Hemisphere). Antonio had a real gift for knowing when to stop and there was no animal or plant he didn't know about. We also passed the new road they are building to let the sugar trucks bypass Orange Walk, passed the sugar plant, and a molasses barge. A sugar barge when down the river in the night.
We passed by a Mennonite community pictured on the right. The Mennonites have been wonderful for Belize, providing almost all the countries dairy products and much of its food. The Mennonites came to the America's to avoid military inscription on the European continent. They left Canada after World War I to avoid anti-German sentiment and being forced to teach English in their schools instead of the German derivative they speak. They moved to Mexico, but the Mexican government insisted they join Mexico's social security program so they started talking with the Belize government. Belize was eager to have people to clear land and make it productive. The Mennonites have a deal in Belize where they are almost like their own country and don't pay many taxes, don't vote, and don't require government services. By all accounts, the relationship has been beneficial for all parties involved.
We reached the ruins at about 11:00 for a three hour tour. After boating through dense jungle to get here, the ruins seemed right in place. We started at the museum which had a large range of pottery found on the site. Lamanai was occupied from 1500 BC to the 16th century, the longest occupied Mayan site. The first building started appearing around 800 BC and a guidebook states the site contains more than 800 structures, most which are still buried under dirt mounds. The pottery reflected the length of occupation in the style changes. We then walked down a trail learning about different jungle trees including the Give And Take Tree whose stickers on the trunk can make you sick for two days but the cure is to rub some of the resin from inside the tree over the wound. Also saw the Chiclet Tree where all gum originally came from (and chiclet gum still comes from), the Allspice Tree, Strangler Figs, several types of Palm Trees, gigantic guanacaste trees, the sacred Maya Ceiba tree, the Ramon Breadnut tree, the Copal Tree, a tree whose resin smells like wonderful incense, the Logwood Tree that has wood so hard termites won't eat it and it can last as a fence post for a century without rotting along with several other trees and plants.
The ruins were incredible. Pictured left is El Castillo, at 108 feet tall, the largest structure of its time when it was constructed in 100 BC. It is undergoing full excavation using traditional materials and methods. The horse in the photo to the right is used to pull a rope that raises buckets of plaster up a cable to workers. This can be seen in the photo on the left.
The mask in the photo on the left is of a man with a crocodile mouth headdress. It is at the base of another large temple that we were allowed to climb. Antonio explained that many Maya structures including this temple were changed over time by building new structures over the top of the original structure. He produced drawings of what archeologists think the temple looked like in different phases of its existence. We also saw a ball court, a well preserves stela (like a large grave stone, usually around eight feet tall, 1 foot deep and 4 feet wide with a curved top) of Lord Smoking Shell, an important ruler, and a complex of residential buildings referred to as Temple of the Jaguar. There were also numerous mounds of buildings that where still covered with soil.
Lamanai is famous for its howler monkeys whose howling can be heard throughout the ruins. There are four of them in the tree pictured in the left photo. I'm swinging on a fig vine, the same type of vine Tarzan used in the photo on the right. After the tour Antonio produced table cloths, real silverware, and a special lunch of a traditionally prepared Mayan chicken dish, rice and beans, potato salad, and a hot pepper onion mix - all created by his Sister. It was delicious and a great ending to the tour.
The trip back was faster but still wonderful. The group is pictured on the left. They dropped me off in front of the inn and I picked up my pack and said goodbye to Rauel and the other wonderful people at the Inn. Then debated if I should head to Belize City and then the Cayes or Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. I decided on Crooked Tree because a friend of a friend said she really enjoyed it. Thanks Mary!!! It was too late to catch a bus anywhere closer than 3 miles from the Sanctuary and I wasn't sure about walking three miles after dark so I decided to splurge and took a $45.00 taxi ride there. Crooked tree was wonderful. But that is tomorrow. I did have a WONDERFUL dinner at the Birds Eye Lodge in Crooked Tree that night, meet very friendly people from an US Audubon Society who where staying at the lodge while visiting schools around the area. I also scheduled a bird watching trip for ~6:30 the next morning.

DAY 4 * HOME * DAY 6