Planes, Tranes and Autos (Belize Style)

I wanted to title this post:
Boat, Bus, Boat, Mayans, Boat, Bus, Boat
But that was too long for a title. However that was our route to the ancient Mayan ruins of Lamanai.

We were picked up at 7 am, an ungodly early time to be picked up when you are on day 6 of 8 in the Caribbean, by our first boat. The first leg of our journey was about an hour from San Pedro to the village of Bomba. It was pretty as we cruise through the mangroves:


This is the 'village' of Bomba, notice all the cool lilies. On our way back they were back down in the water as they are more of a morning dew type of flower.

Yes, this bus is as rickety as it looks in the picture. And to call this path a road would be generous. We had about an hour in the green machine to cover maybe 20 miles if that far.

Boat ride number two took us past one of the Belize's two main Mennonite settlements:

This is what the river looks like from the boat, it really is a jungle out there:

Did I mention that the boat moves MUCH faster than the faith bus? They absolutely cruise through these little channels in the river. It's not exactly eco-friendly tourism but the boat rides are pretty fun.

About four hours after being picked up at Mata Rocks Resort:

Lunch was provided as part of the tour so we quickly ate and then started doing what one does when at Mayan ruins, climb ruins:

The first of which was short:

The second was most definitely not short:

I was the first to the very top (like this is a big surprise) so I was able to do a self portrait with no one around. It's hard to convey how high this was. I guess you can kind of tell by how sweaty I got climbing up. On a side note, the day we went to Lamanai it was hot. Really hot. While we were baking in Belize, the Northern Caribbean was getting hammered by Hurricane Ike. An off shoot of this is that when a hurricane is spinning around somewhere in the Caribbean, the rest of the Caribbean is traditionally really quiet weather wise. Belize almost always has 10-15 mph trade winds coming off the see that keep the edge off the weather. Well because of the hurricane there was not a whisper of wind for three straight days and man was it hot. Try 100 plus degrees with 90% humidity and the aforementioned no wind hot.

Paty finally made it up:


Going up is easy, going down however is not. Paty contemplating the fall:

One of the cooler things about this site is the wildlife. There were Howler Monkeys (they really do howl, loudly) that we saw and wild tropical birds that would eat porfi for lunch.

Also some animals that I would have preferred not to see:

Here is the third of three pyramids that were at least partially restored. Lamanai is full of ruins that are just that, still ruins. You can see where buildings and maybe pyramids were but currently they are just mounds that you can tell used to be something. There is no apparent restoration project underway. In fact this last pyramid was the only one that had a large grass courtyard in front of it. Most of the other sites it would be forest right up until the restored part of the site.

That was all for Lamanai. I could write another 1000 words about the ride back, but it was just the reverse of the trip in with one twist:

The fuel line broke while we were literally in the middle of nowhere. Luckily they were able to fix the fuel line with a stick and a plastic shopping bag. I guess the name on the bus worked itself out as this could have been bad.

We did pick up three wooden bowls from the village of Bomba to serve salad when back at home. Surprisingly, these were really the only souvenirs we bought the entire trip.