Jungle river cruise and Lamanai ruins
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2012
1
23
33
Trip End
Feb 02, 2012
Orange Walk, Belize
Monday, January 23, 2012
Helen and Doug – Helen and Doug went to the Jungle River Cruise office with Pat and Jean to make sure that the tour was going to happen and after Justin picked them up and took them on their way, they started some shopping. The plan was to have a nice breakfast at the restaurant that Helen and Pat had discovered last week. However, we started looking in shops and since the restaurant was a fair distance away, we decided to go there for lunch instead. We made our way to Shivam’s furniture store and found him there. Why didn’t he show up on Sunday with the box springs as per the plan? "Somebody" told Shivam that we had all boarded a boat for Corozal so maybe that’s where we were. Helen was fuming and wasted no time in telling him that we gringos do not all look alike and why would he believe somebody who thought there was a possibility we had left town? Why hadn’t he dropped in to check it out himself? He knew what the arrangement was. When he said that he could deliver them next Sunday, Helen said, "NO, we are leaving on Saturday". So, to his credit, Shivam told us the box springs would be delivered today – and they were – soon after we had all arrived home. Meanwhile, Helen learned from Shivam that there were NO VACUUM CLEANERS in the entire town of Orange Walk. This only made Helen more determined to find one and with Doug’s help, she did indeed find one at another furniture store. It is a Eureka model and Helen purchased it without hesitation. By this time we had several packages to carry so with Doug very graciously carrying the vacuum, we made our way to the restaurant that is owned by Doug from Regina and partner Lucie. We enjoyed a delicious lunch of chicken fingers, fries, and the only beer and clam that Helen had this whole Belizean portion of the trip.
After lunch and a visit with the owner, Helen and Doug headed to the bus stop to catch the 12:00 noon bus. Okay, so it had some trouble with its motor and didn’t leave until 1:00 p.m. but all we need to do is remind ourselves that we’re not in Kansas anymore and all is good!
Last but not least, the vacuum sucks up bugs very efficiently, as we soon found out!
Randy – Randy had his own adventures for the day, particularly with the generator – he may tell you about it (or not). Basically, the cord on the generator broke and Randy had quite a time getting it repaired prior to our return.
Jean and Pat – Of course, nothing happens when it is scheduled to happen. We (Jean, Pat, Helen, and Doug) boarded the blue bus bound for Orange Walk at 6:40 a.m. – about ten minutes earlier than Helen and I had done last week. Our bus stopped for a while as we came upon the 6 a.m. bus, broken down on the gravel road. We didn’t think so many people would fit on one circa 1950’s city-type bus. We were glad we had boarded close to Sarteneja, as there were many, many people standing tightly together along the aisle. At 8:10 a.m. we arrived at Orange Walk and headed straight for the Jungle River Cruise little hole-in-the-wall office. They had no room on their tour for us but phoned another tour company. The cruise and ancient Mayan Lamanai ruins tour cost each of us $80 BZ plus $10 BZ for the museum.
A taxi pulled up with young driver Justin, the grandson of the river cruise company owner. They own fifteen taxis as well as a cruise and tour guide business; mom and grandma provide the tour lunches. We drive a considerable distance out of town to the loading dock where we met Pat and Mary from Edmonton. Pat is a retired general duty nurse and her friend Mary is a silage marketer. They are staying at a Progresso Heights bed and breakfast owned by Justin's family who also has a tour guide business; Mary owns land there.
Jean is sprinkled in Watkins and Pat is decked out in Randy’s baggy long pants, plastered to the hilt in Watkins and Deep Woods Off. We board a nineteen-seat orange canopy-covered boat with a V6 200 hp motor at the back. The jungle cruise started wide and narrowed at other points, branching off into different directions at other times. Sometimes the driver turned the motor off so we could watch whatever activity there was – crocodiles, monkeys and birds and viewed a variety of trees and fern vegetation. At some places, the water is calm and the trees are on either side of us with their trunks growing out of the water. Their big branches cover the sun.
The boat pulls alongside a tiny female spider monkey named Greedy and her four-year old male companion. We watch as they munch on soft flat bread thrown to them by a tourist on our boat. These monkeys are the only new world primates who hang onto trees with their tails, and they do not have an opposing thumb. We come upon a green female iguana, with the orange male iguana not far away. Another bright orange spiny-tailed iguana is perched high up on a tree branch, and then we see many more as we float along. Iguanas can lay up to sixty soft-shelled eggs at a time, and then bury them; their eggs are used as an aphrodisiac. A termite nest sits high up in the tree, bigger than a large beach ball.
We boat past the computer magnate John McAfee’s thatched residential estate, which was built three years ago. Its architecture is such that it blends in with the Belizean surroundings—a huge dock, big house, guest house, and other buildings with four jeeps parked beside what we thought might be a garage.
We see a jakibu stork, apparently a rare occurrence. Its wing-span is 141 inches and the bird stands five feet tall. We come upon twelve bats attached to the side of a tree whose trunk rises out of the water. They look like big brown bumps on the trunk. As they fly away, they look like tiny hummingbirds. We see the world’s hardest tree, the bullet tree, which won’t float and which is so hard that a nail cannot be driven through it. There are beautiful purple water hyacinths and lily pads with tall white flowers.
We see chicklet gum, dogwood, purple red wood, cuppa plum, mahogany and hardwood trees. Guide/boat driver Amir talked about the tea that is made for high blood pressure from one of the trees. Again, we see the black poison wood tree whose sap is like acid and will eat through flesh like third degree burns.
We see blue herons and kingfisher birds. Further on, a ring-kingfisher is spotted. Amir pointed out that North America has only one species of kingfisher whereas Belize has five different types of the bird. Amir steered the boat closer to the edge so we could see the black crocodile which is the most aggressive of crocks as it is able to chomp off a person’s head—its grip comes not from its jaw but from the chest area. There are no alligators in Belize, just crocodiles. Some crocs grow to over twenty feet long.
We see mangrove swallows which sleep during the day and hunt at night. Overhead, Amir points out the bright green snake cactus wound around the trees with their trunks in water. We find the plant amazing in its imitation of a den of snakes hanging down from the branches.
It has taken about 1.5 hours to do the cruise, as the guide has taken his time in pointing out so many things for us. He’s not in a rush and we have ample opportunity to take pictures. Jean is seated at the port, mid boat and she is able to talk with John, a Belizean fellow. Pat stands at the back of the boat with a secondary guide Alfredo, next to main guide and boat driver Amir.
As we pass the Mennonite community of Shipyard, Amir talks about the different ethnic groups resulting in ten languages, three of which are Mayan. The Mennonites came from Mexico in 1958, originally from Britain. The Mennonites produce seventy percent of Belizean products. The Mennonite community is not considered to be a religion, but rather, an ethnic people. Non-Mennonites cannot marry Mennonites. They farm cattle, make furniture, plane lumber, sell eggs and cheese and many other goods to most of the country. They speak mainly English, Spanish and low German. The guide laughingly said that they love to drink and smoke!
We arrived at Lamanai, 24 miles south of Orange Walk, at 11:30 a.m. Lunch is served from coolers that were stored at the back of the boat--white rice with black beans, Caribbean jerk chicken, cabbage and carrot slaw, pickle-flavoured mayonnaise potato salad, and a salad of raw onions, cucumber and tomatoes, all washed down with a Coke each. We ate at a thatch-roofed open area with picnic tables. After lunch we headed off to the museum which gave some history of the Mayan culture and of the Lamanai ruins. Archaeologists think that the Mayan community was wiped out by smallpox in the 1800s.
At its peak, Lamanai had a population of about 35,000 people. The area was first settled 300 BC, so these are the oldest Mayan ruins, as Mexican ruins are only dated from 200 BC. There are more than 800 structures which have been found here, and it will take hundreds of years to excavate even a portion of them.
Lamanai holds the distinction of being the only city with continuous human habitation, right up to current times. Alfredo comments that it was not particularly the Europeans who destroyed the Mayan nation, but rather, it also happened through the loss of the rain forest. Alfredo said that this is now a secondary jungle, as there are spots of sunlight that come through the trees. Primary jungles have absolutely no ferns or foliage at ground level because the top growth is so dense that nothing can get through to grow at ground level. He blames a lot of our world weather problems on the deforestation of our jungles, which are major providers of the oxygen-carbon dioxide cycle—not just our reason called "global warming".
We walked through shaded jungle, past the gigantic Guanacaste, ceiba, and breadnut trees. We see strangler fig trees. We were given bright green small leaves which smelled strongly of allspice. We were encouraged to taste the leaves, which have the properties of novocaine and make the mouth tingly and numb (but we didn’t crunch on that much of it!).
The national flower of Belize, the black orchid, blooms all year round; the national tree is the mahogany, the national bird is the toucan, the national animal is the tapir. As we journey through the jungle, we see a fair number of howler monkeys, one of which has a tiny little baby clinging onto its back. Jean is much better at spotting the monkeys than Pat; the group is mesmerized by their activities high in the trees above us. Clearly, they were just monkeying around!
John, an older Belizean, talked about the strong relationship that had been developed between the Belizeans and Canada, because of the Canadians. He remembers the strong Canadian funding influence, although he is not sure it continues to this day. John’s words make sense to us, as the Lonely Planet states that although archaeological excavations started around 1917, the serious work began by David Pendergast of Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum in 1974.
Our first ruin is Stela 9, erected in 625 AD; it is one of 800 buildings in the ancient city. It’s part of a residential complex built to commemorate the accession of Lord Smoking Shell. We can just see the outline of his rattlesnake headdress and feathers in the large rocks. Archaeologists uncovered the remains of five children who were buried there. The tomb is the first of its kind in Belize. The king was wrapped in cotton clothing, which is not usual in the Mayan tradition—more like the Egyptian mummies; he had a sarcophagus in his hand. A female was also buried at the foot of the building. They tried mummification but the humidity made it unsuccessful.
We move to the ball court where we learn about the game of poc a poc, where the winners were immediately beheaded. The players all wanted to die because they saw it as a faster way out of hell. The Mayans believed that all go to hell first, and have to earn their way out. Being game winners proved a faster way out of hell and hence a more direct route to heaven. The amount of time spent in hell is far more than the short time we are accorded in heaven. Heaven is a journey to save your soul; life is a circle. You’ll come back as an elite if you were a peasant. If you pay your taxes, you will get out of hell. No one stays in heaven, but continues in the life cycle. A full Mayan life cycle is considered to be 52 years. Alfredo said that we are destroying our ecosystem, so we are descending into the hell part of the circle of nature; it will eventually return to good.
We moved onto Structure N10-43, which is the highest structure in Lamanai. It’s a tall, steeply-stepped pyramid. Pat climbed 61 steps, almost to the top, before being called back by the guide. Descending was not quite as easy because of the structure’s steepness, so a large yellow rope has been anchored at the top to enable climbers to descend facing into the rock so as not to be as nervous about the steepness of the downward descent.
Next we went to the Mask Temple, where we see an old building preserved under the newer building. There are three layers of this building. The tree roots peel away the older structures as time goes by. In 1979 two huge blue faces were exposed but over time, the rains eroded the blue, and the stucco turned back to chalk. To stop the natural process, the US government funded a fibre-glass cover to preserve the faces, one of which shows an open mouth with two rounded teeth which signify corn. Lastly, we to go the Jaguar temple where we can clearly see the eyes, nostrils, ears and mouth cut into the stone structure.
Time is running short, so the guides give us a few moments at the little souvenir huts. Pat purchases some bracelets and Mayan calendar cards made by the children of Indian Church Village. Of course, there’s never enough time, so we head back to Orange Walk Town churning up the water as the driver guns it down the river. We arrive in Orange Walk Town and taxi driver Justin drops us off at the bakery where we pick up some treats, enjoy a lemon meringue tart each, and head back to Lucie and Canadian Doug’s restaurant. We meet up with new boat friends Pat and Mary. Jean enjoys a great chicken pasta salad and Pat a delicious shrimp chowder. We say a hasty goodbye because we need to be upstairs at the bus stop for the 5 p.m. bus ride back to Sarteneja.
While we wait for the non-existent 5 p.m. bus, we chat with two boys who are in Grade 8. On school days, boys get up at 4 a.m., board the 4:30 a.m. Sarteneja bus bound for Orange Walk. They attend school at Orange Walk because it is the only technical school in the area. One boy’s mother died of the 'flu in 2009. His grandmother is very proud of him as he is the only child out of four who has made it as far as Form 1 (Grade 8). The boys always board this bus at this time and generally arrive home around 7 p.m., do homework and go to bed by 11 p.m.- quite a different ritual from Canadian kids!
So we board the non-existent 5 p.m. bus which arrived at 5:30 p.m. with folks squished up the narrow stairs – we understood why when we saw it was standing room only! When the bus left at 5:40 p.m. it was quickly getting dark at and the atmosphere in the bus was quite different than the day trips. Lots of loud laughter as folks visited with each other, the men hollering down the length of the bus, and bottle upon bottle of Belikin beer was passed along the aisles to men and women alike. Some women had babies and small children sitting on top of them, beer bottles in hand. It was going to be a long journey back to Sarteneja standing in the aisle, bumping along the pot-holed road! Jean manoeuvred a window seat on one side of the bus, and a man got up and offered Pat a seat on the other side. The bus careened down the already darkened road and the driver cranked up the Spanish-influence music. Part-way through the trip, the bus stopped and a young Mennonite boy and man walked through the bus, selling bagged peanuts to the passengers. Then the bus continued its route in darkness.
Jean and I wondered how we would ever see the Sarteneja garbage dump and four poles later, for our get-off point! Chris, a Minnesota fellow who has been vacationing in Sarteneja since 2002 and who has a Winnebago on his property in town, said it was simple – just bang on the roof of the bus and the driver would let us off. Ha! What a hoot! There are no lights on the road, but it seems that many know we are to get off four poles past the garbage dump—and they are clearly bewildered at our request! We are relieved to see the van headlights in the dark and several passengers’ eyes follow us as we cross the road in darkness and jump into the van. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!
Helen, Randy and Doug made a snack of nachos for all and we settled in for the movie of the night, this time a lighter one called "The Bounty Hunter". G’night!
