A Second Helping of Kumquats

Journal story with pictures by:

Gay A. Wright

Volume 3. The Dead Corn King is Reborn out of the Turtle Shell

The Jaguar Trail leads to the Crocodile Tree in Belize 2006

The journey continues to Belize’s Archaeological sites,

Museums and Local life in the Belize Countryside

December 2006

Visiting towns of San Ignacio, Orange Walk, Corozal

Archaeological sites of Cahal Pech, Xunantunlich, Caracol,

Altun Ha, Nohmul, Cerros and river trip to Lamanai

Howler Monkey Lodge and the monkeys

South to the Toledo area, Sun Creek Lodge and Punta Gorda Town

The archaeological sites of Nim Li Punit, Lubaantun and Uxbenka

Bussing it back through Belize City and the Mexico Border at Chetumal

More pictures can be seen on the CD album

and on my web site at www.cmyfarm.com

as the space in this journal is limiting.

Taxi to San Ignacio

December 2, Now that I was on the Belize side of the border after crossing the Mopan River, which separates Guatemala and Belize, I could see the hillsides were dotted with little houses. They were clean and tidy. It didn’t matter whether they were fancy or plain. The first town of Benque Veijo del Carmen was about two miles down the road and beyond that was my destination of San Ignacio which made the taxi ride nine miles altogether. These towns were located along on the paved road that ran all the way to Belize City. There are only three main roads in Belize, of the other two, one runs north to the Mexico border at Chetumal and the other Hummingbird Highway connects with the Southern Highway at Belmopan that goes south all the way to Punta Gorda. As we drove the clouds came rolling in from the sea, which would have been about sixty miles away, and built up to a black towering mass overhead. We drove under them and made it into town.

The taxi driver told me the fare would be fifteen dollars American money. Since I had used the last of my Queztales on the taxi in Guatemala, I would be starting fresh with American dollars. I thought I had planned very efficiently to make the money last as far as the border. The money exchange for Belizean dollars is two to one American. Since the whole country freely used either currency I didn’t have to go to the bank and make any exchanges. When the driver dropped me in the middle of San Ignacio at the Tropicool Hotel he only gave me five Belizean dollar coins for the twenty in American dollars I gave him. I stood on the curb and watched him drive away without him even taking my bags into the hotel. As I stood there and counted the coins it finally dawned on me he had cheated me out of the other five Belizean dollars I should have had in change. My first and only mistake I made with the money and after that I counted twice, as I was not going to be shortchanged again by not being familiar with the coins and paper money.

I checked into the Tropicool Hotel. I was three weeks early, but that was not a problem, as I was the only one who checked in that day. The room was 11.00 American (or 23.00 Belizean). The owner of the hotel was an English man from the U.K. and told me he had come to Belize to get away from the hustle and bustle of England. He had been in San Ignacio for over 20 years, married a Belizean woman. He raised a family and now the children were teenagers. He showed me to a plain, but clean room with a twin bed. The bathroom and shower were down the hall. He told me there was plenty of hot water when I asked about it.

The rain that had built up in the clouds finally reached their peak and it started to come down in buckets. I was glad I had time to get the luggage in the room before the sky opened up. I unpacked my bags digging out all my filthy clothes I had crammed into them and to after the rain let up, I walked up the street to the laundry “Mary’s” that the hotel owner sent me. She had a room full of washers and dryers. She was very efficient and had my laundry washed and dried by the time I had walked back from Eva’s where I had eaten my dinner.

Eva’s

Eva’s was the hub of all visitor activities in San Ignacio. Bob Jones, the owner of the place for years was from England and spoke with an English accent as did the hotel owner, even after all the years they spent in the tropics. He had his finger on the pulse of every aspect of what a person wanted to see, what was available and arranged tours to the various archaeological sites, caves and river excursions in the area. He knew everybody and everybody knew him. He knew the conditions of all the sites and gave excellent information to help plan your activities. Even outside the area he was known. He ran a very efficient web site and answered e-mails and made arrangements over the Internet. That is how I met him even before I left home. As Kornina was in Guatemala, Bob Jones was my rock in Belize. He was a super friendly person that made me feel at home. When I arrived at Eva’s he was there and greeted me like a long time friend. He made me feel comfortable with his charming and courteous service. He gave me the scoop on the sites as I had lunch. It was 3:00 by then and I had only eaten what I could salvage out of my battered lunch bag. I was starved. I had pork chops and french-fries and a coke. I had to remember after that not to eat pork chops in Belize again, as the way they butchered the meat was not to my liking. It still had on the tough outside rind and lots of fat between it and the meat. The chop wasn’t trimmed well at all and it was so tough I could hardly eat it. I made friends real fast with the ‘house’ cat and fed her most of the chop.

The fifteen or so tables they had extended out onto the sidewalk on the main street of town and along the back of the café they had several Internet computers. Every thing you could want to help you make plans or communicate with the world was located in this tiny space. Posters hung on the walls advertising the different places one could visit and the tour companies that offered the adventures. On another wall was some interesting art painted by a black man who was the janitor of the place. He was a small grizzled black man not at all like the rest of the men I saw. He was so pleasant and radiated his faith and beliefs in God. I sat there and took in all the various characters that wandered in and out of Eva’s café. The black people were a mixture of African and Belizean that makes the unique Garifuna culture. The men had long hair either braided or in dreg locks, making them look Jamaican. The people I saw seemed to have finer chiseled features giving them a polished beauty of long straight noses and teeth surrounded by lips of sensual exquisiteness. There were no heavy features about them. They were tall and carried themselves with majestic grace. There were also Mayan, Asian, (mostly Chinese), some Mexican, Guatemalan and a few white folks that were descendants from immigrants that settled the area from Germany and the English armed services while Belize had been British Honduras. There were plenty of unique characters that wandered in and out of Eva’s café. Then of course, there was every kind of tourist you could imagine all looking for the jungle adventure of a lifetime. Every one was friendly and smiled and said hello. I thought the atmosphere was uplifting and casual. Not in the least was it scary or felt unsafe. Everyone I spoke to seem to tell me in various ways that they were proud of their country and were glad to be a Belizean. I thought it was wonderful. Everyone spoke excellent English, as it is the first language of Belize, but Spanish, Mayan and other dialects are spoken too. Some of the local black men had musical instruments set up on one of Eva’s tables on the sidewalk and waited to make a sale. They were mostly thumb pianos all hand made and looked lovely. I don’t play anything so I didn’t get one. I also found out that Bob Jones had just sold Eva’s to a lovely lady that was going to take over his business, but Bob was going to help her for a few weeks to get her started.

It had rained but a lull between clouds gave me a change to walk back to the laundry and collect my clean clothes. There were lots of people walking around the streets and I could hear music playing. I went back to the hotel, which was two buildings up the street from Eva’s and called it a day. I spent some time in the wonderful hot shower. The hotel owner was a good as his word and the water was plentiful and hot.

It had been three days since a bath and I felt pretty grimy. I turned in for the evening listening to the rain, which persisted on and off during the night. In the morning the sky was still heavy with mist. I found out from Bob Jones that I could walk to the local archaeological site of Cahal Pech and take a combi to Xunantunlich, which was located close to the border at the town of Benque Viejo del Carmen (where I came across the border).

Dec 3, I had breakfast and worked on the Internet a few minutes. When I was done the clouds seemed to break up distributing themselves into puffy patches of white dotting the blue of the sky. I took that as a good sign and started walking up the hill to Cahal Pech.

Cahal Pech

The road was uphill all the way and must have been three of four miles. I had to remember that ‘just a short way’ or ‘not far down the road’ to these people equated to ‘you better take a taxi, honey or you will be pooped when you get there’. I passed many businesses, houses and stores along the way. It was almost hot when I arrived at the site. There were trees there, but on the road even though there were trees in yards not a speck of shade leaned over the fences onto the road. I practically crawled up the steps to the visitor center panting the whole way. I drank my water as I looked at the museum and found they had a video presentation of the restoration of the site. The video was narrated by Dr. Jamie Awe; the director of Belizean Archaeological sites. I was so tired I welcomed the rest and sat on the hard wooden bench for over an hour watching the video. It was extremely interesting and very well done. The video showed the way the site would have looked at various stages of its’ history with illustrations done in 3D animation. Even though it was informative I almost fell asleep. Oops, better get up and move around. They had a lovely mural painted on the wall of a scene of ancient city life and several objects from the tombs located in glass display cabinets. The site of Cahal Pech means place of ticks, or the royal family of Pech. There is some discussion one which is right.

I walked down to the site following a set of steps and followed the trail into the site. I was greeted by John, a student studying under Dr. Awe. I hadn’t had guides lead me around anywhere before, but he sort of took over as my guide, following me and talking as I walked along the path. He was interesting and explained a lot of the things that went on in ancient times. He was also pretty amazed that I knew almost as much as he did. He would ask me a question about a building or area and I would answer him correctly. It sure paid off to have read so many books for several years on the ancient Mayan culture.

The arrangement of the acropolis was really neat. They had an arched doorway at the top of a set of steps that entered into the inner courtyard plaza. The ground level of the plaza sloped downward into one corner so the water could drain out of a doorway and drain off below the hill. They had a plaza area for the common people on one side and another for the visiting dignitaries on the other side. The royal quarters for the kings family was behind the acropolis. The whole place was accessed through passageways and steps leading to three levels through arched doorways. They had one building beyond the ball court that was the jaguar temple dating from 1200 B.C. In front of the ball court were three temples right in a row that had not been excavated yet. John asked me what I thought they might be. I looked them over and told him I thought it looked like an observatory that marked the movement of the sun and planets through the seasons, and could be read by looking from the top of the acropolis.

He also told me about an interesting tree growing there. It had big round fruit on the branches growing in pairs. He said it was called ‘Grandpa balls’. The fruit oozed a sticky substance that attracted flies and bugs. It was a natural flytrap, as the bugs stuck in the sticky sap and were held firm by the substance. I thought that was the funniest thing I had every heard of. What a sense of humor these people have. That wasn’t the only time I heard about the tree, and the other joke is about the tourist tree, which is red and peeling. (Likened to a fair-haired sunburned gringo tourist).

He said he would tell his professor, Dr. Awe, that he met an amazing woman that knew a lot about the ancient Maya. He sure flattered me. I enjoyed the interaction between John and myself. He took me to a small hut at the end of the tour and showed me some souvenir items that were finely crafted by local artisans. I thought I should buy something and was real happy with my selection of the silver frog earrings with a silver ball made by a lady in a craft co-op nearby. I gave John a tip to add to his education fund and bid him good-bye. As I walked down the path he snagged two young ladies for his next presentation.

The whole site was covered with palm trees and other varieties making it a very lovely shaded spot. These were the same kind of palms that the nuts were used to manufacture palm nut oil. The oil was used in cooking like we use vegetable oil. When I walked into the parking lot I could see the vista of the town below me. It was truly picturesque. I walked back downhill to Eva’s and had a hamburger. It was only three p.m. but I was tired. I found a novel to read on a table at Eva’s, trade 2 for 1. I didn’t have any to trade but they let me read one anyway. It was quiet in town because it was Sunday and most of the people were home with their families. The day had remained sunny and lovely and I enjoyed the quiet time in my room.

Xunatunlich – Maiden of the Rock

December 4, I ate breakfast at Eva’s and was able to purchase a packed lunch to take with me. Now, I must note that Eva’s could pack a mean lunch. There was a sandwich, either of egg or ham and cheese, an orange, banana, desert scone, and bag of banana chips. At lot for 5.00 B. and it was good. The morning was gray and the clouds hung low. I caught the bus going to Benque Veijo del Carmen town, which cost me a Belizean dollar. I was dropped off at the point the ferry crosses the Mopan River. The ferry crossed back and forth taking visitors to the other side of the river to a road that winds uphill to the site of Xunatunlich. The river was deep, but even though the current was strong, this spot was fairly smooth. The ferry was hand cranked by a man who turned a handle and made the ferry winch itself along a stationary cable line. The ferry was big enough for one car and several passengers. It was really quaint and the ride was short but enjoyable. The car that was going across the same time as me was filled with vacationing Mormon missionaries. That just goes to show the Mormons’ etiquette, as they climbed back into their car and started up hill to the site never offering me a ride. Save the heathens and leave the little ole ladies to walk. I never thought much of them anyway. Now I was sure they had no class.

I walked the whole way uphill. Bob had told me about the site and the ferry, but I missed the part about how long the road was to the top of the hill. Several cars passed me that didn’t offer me a ride either. The hill wasn’t steep but the road must have been a couple of miles. The walk was fairly enjoyable and I was able to see the countryside, the trees and flowers, communicating with Mother Nature the whole way. I stopped at the Visitors Center and purchased my ticket and a coke, then walked another short way up another hill to the site area.

There was a small museum complex with rest rooms that showed pictures of the various time lines for the site construction over the centuries. After I looked at all the information I walked up the steps to the main site. It started to rain so I went in the building that the stele were displayed. I looked at that and since the rain seemed to stop I walked up to plaza one. It was pretty and the green grass was freshly mowed on the plaza area. I sat and started to eat my lunch. The temple building fascinated me so I left my lunch and walked across the plaza to it. I found steps that went up to the top on the backside of the temple. It wasn’t a very high temple and had a flat platform on top where there were walls to several small rooms. I could see across the site to temple two and six, (the grand temple). Looking the other way behind the temple I was able to view the countryside, the scenery in the valley below was breathtaking. The hills undulated in bands of blue and green color. There were clouds rolling in, sending waves of rain across the tree line, coming right toward me. I had about five minutes to climb down and get across the plaza and down to the stele building before it poured. I finished my lunch there. I sat in the doorway and watched it rain for about 20 minutes. Some college kids were playing soccer in the open plaza, but were chased out by Chaac, (the rain god). Don’t think he liked the game being played in his holy domain. They left, running down the steps to the museum area leaving me alone in the site. I wasn’t alone for long as several other groups and couples came and left as I wandered around. I crossed the plaza to an area that was supposed to the first ball court. I couldn’t see it and entered plaza three and walked around A-18 to see the ball court there. It was big. I found the steps that led up to the top of the A-6 temple that was covered with the glyphic friezes carved on it. I climbed up each level taking pictures and enjoying the view as I went. Each level had a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside. The archaeologists that worked restoring the site had built a staircase in one of the rooms in the temple. You could see from the ground, but it seemed to be out of place until I climbed up there and found out why. In order to reach the top of the temple; a person could accessed that level by climbing the flight of steps in the room. I gingerly ascended them hanging on to mid-air and could see over the edge of the top platform. I did not climb out on to it. It was spooky not having anything to hold on to help me keep my balance. I just looked at the columns that made the roof comb and then descended to the second level and walked across a wider ledge that connected one side to another. There were also steps built into the temple that were added so visitors could access the levels and not fall off. The original steps would have ascended straight up the middle of the temple from the base. The way they fixed the steps you couldn’t see them until you were right on them. From the third level you could look up and almost reach out and touch the frieze glyphs, but I just took pictures. These glyphs had been molded off the original ones in fiberglass and were placed in front of them to withstand the weather, while the original ones were buried underneath to preserve them. There were a series of rooms on the forth level in front of the temple and the platform there was wider. Below them, in front of the temple was a whole row of rooms for the priests to live in. I had a grand view and found it was a very pleasant site to visit. I had a hunch that the group of three unexcavated temples I saw built on the side in front of the grand temple were used to view the sun on the solstice and equinox of the seasons as they faced temple A-2 on the west side like an observatory. It was just a hunch, as it wasn’t mentioned in the brochure I bought about the site. The small building down the row A-14 housed a stele and the wall and arched doorway was built like the ones in Tikal. They housed the stele in a small walled complex, maybe with a thatched roof. I left the site walking back admiring the wonderful job the caretakers were doing keeping the site groomed so pristine. As I passed several of them I stopped and was able to voice my appreciation to them in person.

I met a man, Kevin, from New York on the top of the temple. When I started down the road on my way back he came in a taxi and stopped and offered me a ride to the ferry. When we were crossing the ferry I saw my bus that returned to town pull away from the bus stop so he offered me a ride all the way to San Ignacio. Finally, I found a gentleman in the crowd. Otherwise I would have waited for an hour for the next bus to come by. I missed looking at the craft stalls set up along the road in front of the site, but since I had a ride I wasn’t sorry. It looked like rain again as we entered town, and soon it did.

I had dinner and picked up another romance novel to read that night. I don’t usually read them, but that was the only thing around to entertain myself.

Another day off

December 5, I was supposed to go to the ATM cave to see the ancient offerings made in huge pottery vases, but the rain had swollen the river, rising over the bridge and made the road impassable. They cancelled the tour that day. I spent the day walking around town. Not much to see, but I looked at the Hawksworth Bridge built in1949, the meat packing plant, where they processed ground beef, looked in a few dry goods stores that were run by Asian people and called it quits. Even the souvenir shops had imported goods from Guatemala, which by the way, was more expensive. I had to go to the pharmacy and get some sore throat spray as my throat had a bad rasp. I felt like I had caught a chill at Tikal and it was just catching up to me. I ended up reading three novels in three days. It rained on and off all day and all night. I made arrangements to rent a truck the next morning to go to Orange Walk and Corozal and from there I would head down to the Toledo area in southern Belize. 350.00 American for 8 days.

Howler Monkey Lodge

December 6, I ordered a packed lunch from Eva’s and loaded my luggage into the Kia SUV I had rented. I took off down the road to the Howler Monkey Lodge at Bermudian landing leaving San Ignacio in the morning mist. To answer a question, Belizeans drive on the right side of the road, not on the left. All the main roads in Belize were paved. I turned off just beyond Hattiesville and took a secondary road to Bermudian Landing. It cut off a triangle of travel, bypassing Belize City by connecting with Burrell Boom. The scenery was sparse, marshy flatlands, with houses here and there sitting in the mud. Some of the houses were on stilts, accounting for amount of rainy weather the country gets. Some houses were nice, some were fancy and some were down right shanty tin shacks. People walked up and down the roads, some had motorcycles some had old cars and there were Mennonites with horses and buggies. The mass of the people rode the bus system that passed by the villages on the main road shuttling back and forth from Belize City to San Ignacio.

I made it to Howler Monkey Lodge about 3 p.m. I was sick as a dog and my throat was as raw as hamburger. The owner fixed me a hot lemon and honey to drink. She showed me to my room, which was one of several in a cabin. There was a nice bathroom down the hall. I checked it out and again, no hot water. The water was pumped up from the river and the toilet and sink water was cloudy. I didn’t brush my teeth in it, but used my bottle water for that. I didn’t shower either. They advertised a restaurant, but it was closed. I was directed to a place down the road for something to eat. I was in such a fog I lay down and napped awhile. The bed covers smelled musty from the rain and all I could do was smell the mold. It was still light when I woke up. The sun had come out and was shining in the mud puddles when I walked down the road a couple of blocks to the shack where a black woman fixed fried chicken and French fries. The food wasn’t too bad and at least it was fresh. The other room of the shack had a little store. I mean little. It had a few necessary staples on the shelves. I bought a loaf of bread, couple cans of tuna and a coke for future lunches and took my dinner in a to-go plastic box back to the lodge. I sat on the patio covered with a thatched roof and ate. There was so much on the plate I couldn’t eat it all. I managed to walk down to the river and take a few pictures, but the mosquitoes were so bad I didn’t stay long. I looked at their cabins along the riverbank, which were old, dilapidated and lopsided from shifting aged timber foundations. They had a swimming pool but used water they pumped out of the river that was also murky. They had received so much rain the ground was soggy and squished when I walked. Had it not been for the grass I would have been up to my ankles in mud. The main lodge building sat close to the driveway on the one lane road that ran down to the Howler Monkey Reserve. There were two other lodges next to theirs, but they were closed or vacant. Must be hard to make a living here. This should be a good area, as there are no other places to stay while visiting the Howler Monkey sanctuary. The sanctuary itself was located on land on either side of the river set aside by the farmers, or landowners to provide a safe haven for the monkeys. I could hear them, but never saw any. After another hot lemon and honey drink I went to bed. I started reading another book I found at the lodge and read until I was too sick to see. I had to pull the covers, (ugh), up as the night was cool and damp. It was not a good night as I started to cough from the congestion that moved from my throat to my chest.

December 7, in the morning I was still rummy, had another hot lemon and honey and left about 8 a.m. I was so disappointed in my stay I didn’t even go to the sanctuary and look at the monkeys. I borrowed a picture of them from Bruno to show, but I left without looking back, my head swimming in a fog. The owners were friendly and nice, but it was another case of the website showing a great place that didn’t live up to expectations. I drove across several one-lane bridges on the way out that spanned swollen rainwater rivers. The day was overcast and gloomy. The drive was along a sparsely occupied road that stretched into the marshy horizon. I reached the turn off to Altun Ha Archaeological site and stopped at the only corner vendor stand I had even seen for some fifty miles and bought some fruit and a drink. There was nothing else along the way to get something to eat. Some twenty or so K up the old highway was the site. The old highway really was old. It was full of potholes and boggy areas along the edge of the road. There were places that if you even thought of leaving the crumbled edge of the road you would have sunk in to oblivion and never been found. There were houses located along that stretch of highway, some sat on stilts, other ones seemed to float in the middle of mud holes. The watery areas that were like little lakes were populated with blooming lilies arranged with the artistry of a Cézanne painting.

Altun Ha

Altun Ha was also disappointing. It had only two plazas, with badly done restoration. I thought it was overblown and a tourist trap. There were more artists there than temple buildings. On the way through the site a couple of boys came out and showed some crocodiles they had caught. For a Belizean dollar you could take the picture of the pair. Working it any way they could to earn a buck. They had the crocodiles mouth tied shut with a string to keep him from biting. The artist shops were nicely built in a row out of wood and had door windows they could raise to show their wares. Most of the crafts were lovely woodcarvings out of a tree that only grows in Belize. I was impressed by a couple of the artists work and bought a toucan and wooden bowl. They priced their goods in American dollars. Had to figure as most of the tourists were brought in on busses from the cruise ships. I made a couple of tuna sandwiches in the parking lot and watched the overcast sky burn off to a hazy sunny day. I had to drive back down to the fork in the road to reach the good main highway to turn and go to Orange Walk Town.

The drive was long and tedious, another fifty miles of flat marshy land. I had to stop and take a nap at a wide spot along the desolate highway, because I was rummy and sick. The sun felt good. The landscape was still marshy and barren, but as I got closer to Orange Walk the land slowly became filled with sugar cane fields. There were many large trucks on the road filled with sugar cane stocks delivering them to the refinery in Orange Walk. You could see the smoke from the factory for miles before you could see the building.

Orange Walk and Nohmul

Orange Walk seemed to be thrown together in a mish-mash of concrete sidewalks and lopsided two story buildings. The only impressive building was the hotel. The La Fuente Hotel was a delightful surprise. I had booked it by Internet and they were expecting me. I could use my credit card. It had been voted the only five-star hotel in Belize. The staff was polite and courteous, making sure every need I had was seen to. I was shown to a lovely room with a king size bed, huge window with a fairly nice view. The door opened up to the balcony on the stairs that had a great view of the town and river. The room had a beautiful bathroom, with hot water, TV, small icebox and microwave. This was so far, the best place I stayed. They even had a free Internet for guests in the lobby and a nighttime guard on duty. The staff arranged a tour to the archaeological site of Lamanai the next day. They didn’t have a restaurant, but they directed me to a place a couple of doors down from them. It wasn’t much and I only ate breakfast there twice. I went to the store instead and bought some soup, crackers, honey, lemons, pudding cups and ate in the room. The store offered a wonderful assortment of goods. The town had a lot of Chinese (including the man who owned the grocery store) but not many places to eat. They had an ice plant, veggie stores, meat stores, hardware stores, and other things. I also found the pharmacy and bought some really strong cough expectorant medicine. Thank goodness Belize is like Mexico and have excellent medicine for sale with out prescriptions.

I still had time, as it was early in the day when I arrived so I went to look for the Nohmul Archaeological site. It was only a few miles up the road toward Corozal. I found the small sign on a fence post that showed it was down a road filled with sugar cane fields. The restaurant that marked the road had been abandoned for years and the sign on it was almost unreadable. I was hesitant to go too far as the road was a muddy track and still wet and mucky from the rains. I stopped a young man working by the edge of a sugarcane field and asked him where the ‘pyramides’ were. His English wasn’t very good, but he understood what I wanted. He told me to wait and disappeared on his bicycle down the mud track. In a few minutes he came back and indicated he asked his boss if he could show me the site. He left his bike and climbed into the truck with me. We drove down the road to a wooded area in the middle of the sugar cane fields that was only a patch of trees left that was slowly being swallowed up by the commerce around it. We went down a couple of dubious mud trails and then he told me to stop. We got out and he led me through an obscure opening in the jungle trees and up a steep hill. I figured out that the hill was the side of a temple as I could see the stone sides in places. I almost didn’t make it, as it was so steep and slippery. He showed me the holes and trenches the archaeologists dug in the 1980’s. He led me down one side and showed me another temple side with more digging. We made it to the top and looked out over a spectacular view of the countryside around it. It was a shame that this site, too, was becoming lost in the trees like so many others. It had only been twenty-five years or so since any excavation had been done, but with out seeing the holes and trenches, no one would have ever known anyone had been there. The only reason I knew was because I had corresponded with an archaeologist that had dug there and he sent me pictures of when he was on the site. The young man led me back down to the truck and we slipped and slid our way out of the mushy road and back to the field where his bike was. I tipped him for his time and kindness and bid him good-bye. I couldn’t find any of the other sites because they were now on private land and inaccessible.

I drove back to Orange Walk and called it a night. I coughed and choked all night, but the congestion was coming up. It rained during the night and by morning it was fair.

I had breakfast at the little place down the street. Pancakes. Better than the eggs the next day. Not a good thing to eat in Orange Walk. Culture differences make a big impact on the way the cook presents the fare and what she prepares it from.

Lamanani

We left in a tour van to go to Lamanai the next morning about 9 a.m. The ride was short as we only went as far as the place the boats dock along the river. I felt a little better, as my throat was not as rough and I was coughing up congestion. The boat ride was nice. We went down river in the same sort of boat as in Guatemala that had a canopy over three or four bench seats. There were 8 passengers and the boatman. He was also the guide and he gave a good speech about the area, economy, wildlife and the site itself. We saw many crocodiles, iguanas and birds. He pointed out the sugar refinery and showed us the way they load the brown sugar syrup they extract from the cane onto boats and ship it down river to Belize City to be exported. He showed us the Mennonite farms and told us how they brought vegetable farming to the area that only raised sugar cane. He told the species of each bird and a little about the ones we saw. He also had a bird book to show us. Lamanai was another overly touristy site, but not as bad as the build up and let down that Altun Ha was.

We landed at a dock that had a huge sign marking the site. It had a nice visitor Center and some tourist shops. There was a lovely picnic table area with a covered palapa by the river and we sat down and had lunch.

The guide brought a huge picnic basket full of chicken, potato salad with rice and veggie salad. We also had cold sodas. It was really good. When we could not eat another bite our boatman/guide showed us the museum, temples and plazas. They had a number of nice exhibits in the museum. Lots of pottery that was reconstructed had pieces missing but glued together enough to give you a picture of the completed article. There was a lot more to the site than we were shown, as it wasn’t all excavated yet. The temples were old and moss covered. It reminded me of Uaxcatun in Guatemala, as the stones seemed to be the same age. We walked the last of the plazas in a heavy mist seeing the jaguar temple last as we ran back to the visitor center. When we reached the picnic area where we started, the guide and several other men introduced us to a gentleman of some importance. I didn’t snap to attention until they said he was Professor Jamie Awe. I knew right then I was given the privilege to be introduced to the man himself. I was impressed. I told him about his student John at Cahal Pech and how much I liked the site and the presentation he did on the video. He was friendly and pleasant. He autographed my brochure on Lamanai. He, too, was working, giving a tour of the site to some other people.

The weather held until we were about half way back on the boat. Then it started to rain, sending down cold showers of water that cut to the bone. The rain came in waves, some times fine and sometimes heavy. We reached the shore where we loaded that morning, but there wasn’t any van to take us back to the hotel. I could see the back of the hotel from where we were, so another lady and I walked to it, climbing over a couple of fences to get to the hotel complex. We laughed the whole way thinking the dogs that ran around everywhere would attach us.

Just a side note: she was a left-Lieutent and engineer with the royal navy and had been out in the field for the last 6 weeks on a mapping mission, living out of one backpack. I would have never guessed. She said she had not had a bath the whole time. Here I have been complaining about missing a shower every three days or so. She was made of steel, but looked like a very small and slightly shy mousy wallflower. She beat the pants off me, for sure. She had treated herself to the hotel on the week’s leave she had during her military duty.

As soon as we arrived at the hotel it started to rain hard. The steady rain came in sheets and lasted all night. I fixed my soup and hot drink and turned in. I listened to the rain, along with the lightening and thunder that accompanied it.

Cerros and Corozal

In the morning, Dec 9, it was still sprinkling but cleared to a high overcast. I drove to Cerros turning off at the road just outside Corozal town and drove 15 miles on a bumpy, but well packed dirt road. If it had not been for the cane trucks using the road it would have been another bog. When I reached the river inlet there was another hand cranked ferry that took cars and walking passengers from one side to another. This ferry was bigger and could carry three vehicles and a number of passengers. I had to wait quite awhile to get on the ferry as it was waiting for a tugboat to maneuver around the ferry crossing and pick up, or in this case pull out a sugarcane barge and tow it up river somewhere. It seemed this ferry was cranked by any of the passengers that chose to get out of their cars and help with a turn of the handle. On the way in, it was a group of young schoolboys and on the way out a couple did it. He was a big muscular man and she was an overly endowed young woman showing him a thing or three in many ways. The road and ferry was busy all times of the day.

I stayed in the truck and watched. When I reached the fork in the road to go to Cerros, the sign pointed straight ahead, but gave no miles. I finally had a truck pull up behind me and when I asked him, he pointed straight ahead. Ok, I drove on down, but was concerned I wasn’t in the right place as there was nothing but boggy marshes and cane fields on either side of the road. I finally made it to a village on the edge of the ocean and there was another small sign that pointed to another fork that went further in on a bumpier and pothole filled muddy track of a road. Six miles later, which seemed like another fifty I found the sign that said welcome to Cerros. I forgot my bug spray and the mosquitoes nailed me from the parking lot to the visitor center and museum on the shore of the ocean. The wind was whipping up a gale and the sea was rough and gray. It was still partly cloudy and hazy. Across the bay you could see the town of Corozal spread out along the shore. There was a caretaker there that explained the site and showed me the signs and pictures on display in the museum. They did not have many items, as the ones they found have ended up in other museums. He was interesting and explained the history well. I felt he almost let his Christian ways and judgmental attitude interfere with his presentation on how the ancient Mayan lived their lives. He kept bringing up how he was brought up believing in Jesus and I kind of thought he expected the ancients to have done the same. He explained how the sun mask carvings on the temple A-5 had been rebuilt and painted to represent the way they looked when new. I thanked him for his time and paid for my fee to enter the site. I walked the paths and looked at the temples, masks, mounds and the lovely groomed grounds. The plant ‘wandering Jew’ grew everywhere along the edges of the paths. It had been planted here to make the landscape prettier. I had seen the same plant in Aguateca growing wild. The site was really small and the mosquitoes were huge. I really rushed to get back to the truck. After following the same road going out, I turned into Corozal town and drove the streets along the shoreline. There were hotels, but I could not find a place to eat. I made tuna sandwiches when I stopped at a seaside park, (yum, my favorite) and choked them down with a hot soda. The wind was still blowing hard and the sea remained gray and choppy. It was Saturday, but the town seemed to be closed. The whole place was ugly with dirt streets and beat to death buildings with peeling paint. Corozal had no charm to it at all showing through the garbage and flowers littering the streets. I thought Orange Walk lacked charming qualities, but this was the bottom of the pit, having no saving grace what so ever. I drove back to Orange Walk arriving about 4 p.m. I bought gas in San Jose village just about 10 miles from Orange Walk in order to have a full tank when I left in the morning. I was able to get 30 K to a gallon and only had to fill up three times on my rental trip. Gas was sold by the liter and cost 6.89 Belizean dollars a liter or about 3.42 dollars American.

Heading for Toledo area in southern Belize

Sunday December 10, I left about 6 a.m. It was just about sunrise, but the sky was still spitting rain. I had to find the night watchman, as he was the one that opened the locked gate to the private parking lot for the hotel. It was still sprinkling as I drove out of town and I managed to take some pictures through the windshield of the empty streets. I was going to strive to drive it in a straight run, the distance of 230 K. It was 77 K from Orange Walk to Belmopan taking the side road again through Burrell Boom in order to bypass Belize City again. I turned at Belmopan and drove down the Hummingbird Highway and turned on the connecting Southern Highway to the “Dump”. A corner, 153 k at the end of the road, which forks going either to Punta Gorda or the village of San Antonio.

When I came through the capital city of Belmopan, the land turned sharply from swamp to mountains. A very drastic change and I wound my way up the highway through orange and banana orchards, palm nut groves and small villages all shrouded in the mists of clouds and rain. I traveled steadily up the forested hills until I crossed the mountain range and leveled out to a high flat plain. I weather cleared at this point and the scenery was scrubby brush between the orchards and tall stubs of trees. I found out that a pine beetle bug infested the forests in that area a number of years ago and killed most of the pine trees for miles around. There were several villages along the highway but only one place that looked like they had a store open. I bought a coke and a bag of cookies, as they didn’t have anything else to eat. They didn’t speak English either, so I figured I was in the middle of the Mayan settlement country. I fed the cookies to the next turkeys and chickens I came across.

Nim Li Punit

I stopped at the archaeological site of Nim Li Punit. It was right on the road and sat on the top of a hillside that gave a spectacular view of the countryside all the way to the ocean. The mountain peaks in the distance were called seven sisters and stood out prominently between the site and the sea. The site had a very nice visitors center and museum. It held the largest stele ever found, over 30 feet high. Needless to say it lay down in the museum. They had very nice pottery and other items on display they recovered from the tombs. The caretakers were informative about the site and I purchased a map to guide myself. The bugs weren’t bad and the breeze was light and refreshing. They had some open tombs preserved under thatched roofs and one plaza full of stele. This site was built with very different stone. It was a sand stone that turned black with age and was assembled without mortar. The site was small and very well groomed, built on a series of flattened hill plazas connected by stairways. I walked all around looking at all the steps and walls. One of the caretakers told me the roofs were all thatched when new making this a very old site. There was moss on all the stones and stele. I enjoyed the site and the gorgeous view from the top of the hillside. On the way down the road from the site a young girl was picking some fruit from a tree. I asked her what it was and she picked one for me. No English, so I asked Melissa when I arrived at Sun Creek Lodge, she told me it was pudding apples. The fruit was soft and squishy and tasted kind of bland. I didn’t like it.

I continued down an unpaved section of road that was gravel for about 30 miles between Golden and Silver Creeks before I connected with the paved road again. It wasn’t bad with mud, but washboard bumps just about beat my kidneys to death. I found a place to eat after I stopped at the first gas station not far from Big Falls. I had a lovely lunch at a homey place called Colman’s at Big Falls. Chicken and French fries served up by a gracious lady. She and her husband owned the place and were open everyday. Also located at Big Falls was a huge rice mill. Down the road only a few miles was the intersection they called the Dump. It too, had a gas station. I took a left and within 2 miles was turning into the driveway at Sun Creek Lodge.

Sun Creek Lodge

I arrived about 3 p.m. I made good time considering I drove straight through until I arrived at the site of Nim Li Punit, then over the gravel road and had lunch. My host and hostess, Bruno and Melissa Kuppinger were there to greet me. They had a wonderful oasis in the countryside. Their place was surrounded with lush gardens that Melissa planted only six years ago. She had flowers and scrubs of all kinds that bloomed and gave off the most wonderful fragrances. Even with my congestion I could smell them. They had built seven or eight Mayan houses that dotted the acreage. They afforded privacy, partly concealed and tucked in between the paths and footbridges that wound their way through the flowers and scrubs. It was beautiful. I was shown to a lovely Mayan house, built with an octagon shape and huge thatched roof. It had a flush toilet room attached to one side. It was airy and bright tastefully decorated with décor that made you feel at home. She had made bright red curtains that had tropical flowers and the phrase, ‘You better Belize it’, written across the material that covered the big screened windows. The cabin had a huge double bed and two twin beds on two other sides of the room. Small rugs graced the floor; a lounge chair and couple of tables completed the furnishings. Even though the five-star Hotel in Orange Walk had a lot of amenities this one out shone it by being warm and inviting. It was clean and smelled like fresh spring air. How it lifted my sagging congested spirits. She invited me to have dinner with the family that evening. I sure was glad, as I was running low on tuna sandwiches. The only thing it didn’t have was hot water. I won’t even go there. I found the bathhouse on my walk around the grounds the next day. Bucket showers inside a bamboo fenced shower house. That was great for hot weather, but not for the rainy cold winter or being as sick as I was.

I rested before dinner and Melissa brought me some hot tea, which I doctored with lemon and honey. We ate at the family dinner table in their Mayan house. There was another guest for dinner, a lady, Christine from Portugal that was a neighbor and was only visiting a few days. She was as delightful as my host and hostess and I really enjoyed chatting with them. It was hard to talk with my congestion, but I had a good time listening to the conversation. I was delighted with the cats, dog and the parrot, ‘Hunter’. I got him to climb up to my shoulder and fed him papaya. Bruno was surprised, as he never does that with strangers. I really like parrots so that was a snap.

Lubaantun

Monday Dec 11, after a pleasant breakfast with the KuppingersI went to the site of Lubaantun. The day was warm and partly cloudy. There was enough sun to make it nice. I made it after a few wrong turns in the village. I kept missing the turn, as a drunken man was standing in the intersection waving a bottle of booze around. I was trying to avoid him and had to keep turning around and looking for the road again and again. He finally stumbled across the road and was helped by another man to reach safety. When I finally made the correct turn the site was only a couple of miles away. The road into it was a narrow grassy track. When I reached the parking lot I encountered a young boy of 10 or 11 that had a knapsack of crafted items. He sold me a lovely little basket woven out of local rushes of some sort. I also bought an embroidered cloth of the Belize jaguar. It would look good stretched in a frame. I thought the goods were a bit high, but he hadn’t made a sale that day and looked like he could use it.

The site was situated on a flattened hill and had a lovely stone built visitor center. I walked my way up a steep path and came out at the side of the major plaza. There were several ball courts at the site and this one, too, had buildings with thatched roofs when original. They were also built of the same sand stone without mortar. Most of the buildings were not tall and some stonewalls had shifted over the centuries making the temples shift, then sag and fall apart. There had been extensive reconstruction done to a lot of the buildings. I especially liked the altar in the small courtyard. This is the site where the archaeologist’s daughter found the crystal skull in 1917 or so. It is still in the family’s private collection and closely guarded. No one knows much about the skull, as the family won’t allow it to be examined. It is rumored in the Archaeological circles that it was planted on the altar as a gift for the daughter’s 17^th birthday. Seemed to make sense as nothing like it has ever been found anywhere else. I looked through the museum at the visitor center where they had some interesting pottery on display.

Uxbenka

The day was still lovely so I drove on to the site of Uxbenka. The gravel road continued on for another ten miles, over the mountains and across narrow one-lane bridges beyond the village of San Antonio. I reached the water tower that marked the spot to park. I followed Bruno’s instructions and climbed the hill where the site was located. Brush and weeds up to my neck covered the place. I found the steps going up to the upper plaza and climbed them. I located several stele in the weeds and walked around the temple on the top. It was hard climbing as I was walking over the crumbled stones that the temple had been built. I looked out over the valley below from that vantage point and saw a huge black cloud building up on the horizon. I managed to finish walking around and took shelter under a palapa that had been built by some archaeologists in the past as the rain began. I debated for a while about the best time to climb down and not slip in the wet grass and mud and as soon as the rain let up just a little I scrambled down the hill. I had stickers everywhere in my clothes and was soaked to the skin. I had to change my pants, socks and shoes when I reached the truck. By then the storm had passed and the sun was out again. The mountains were green and lush with vegetation and trees. It looked so pristine and beautiful. I think I was the only one within miles of the site. I took pictures of the clouds covering the mountaintops and the rain as it spread over the valleys. I stopped at a waterfall close to the San Antonio village and found this lovely scene with several couples enjoying the water. When I reached the ‘dump’ intersection again, it was early and still sunny so I decided to drive the 20 miles to Punta Gorda and see what it was like.

Punta Gorda

Punta Gorda was the most southern town in Belize. It sat on the edge of the ocean that made the last stand of civilization in that remote area. When I reached the ocean at the end of the road, it was blue and calm, but had no beaches. There were many buildings in town, some were resorts or hotels others were businesses at the core of the town. There was a large community of black Garifunca people. When I drove down a street, I had to wait for a whole school of young children to cross an intersection. They were walking in a double line. Boys and girls dressed alike in uniforms. Beyond the town were houses. The streets were paved, but the buildings looked worn and ratty. The town had little cluttered charm about it, but it, too, was trashy and didn’t have much to offer in the way of a place to eat. I finally found a cafe and had shrimp. Thinking this was a seaside town it would have good seafood. Wrong. The shrimp were terrible.

There were a number of men sitting around the corners. One approached the truck when I called out to him asking where a café was. He came to the window gave me directions saying the information was worth a dollar. I asked him if he was going to drink it up or have something to eat. He just smiled and when I gave him a coin, he thanked me in the singsong lilt they have to their voices and went back to the group of men on the corner.

The next beggar came up to me when I returned to the truck after lunch. He said he had watched my truck for me so it would be safe. Well, I had done the same thing when I was at the café. I thanked him too, and gave him a coin. That was the last I wanted to see of that place and drove on out and back to Sun Creek Lodge. I rested the balance of the afternoon. Bruno and Melissa invited me to eat with them again. We had chicken curry that evening with lots of fruit. Christine, their neighbor was there too. We had a lovely evening. Bruno asked about Uxbenka and I told him about the weeds, stickers and rain, and said it really ‘ushed my benka’. He thought that was pretty funny. Melissa had put up their Christmas tree that day and it had lovely blinking lights on it. It was nice to see and reminded me that it was getting close to that time.

It rained all night and was still misting in the morning. I had seen all I could see of the area so I headed back to San Ignacio. My host, Bruno and his wife Melissa were very gracious people and surely extended the best in hospitality to me. I enjoyed my stay even though I was still sick. I was getting better, but every time it rained I got chilled again and made it worse. I would have stayed longer if I were well and would have had him take me to Pulisha, but as the rest of the places, the road was under mud. I bid them good-bye not wanting to leave such a lovely place and such congenial hosts but I wanted to get back to San Ignacio before more rain came.

The trip back to San Ignacio

December 12, the drive back to San Ignacio had spotty rain showers all the way. I took more pictures of the clouds, rain on the mountains, orchards, and farms. It was pretty. They had banana orchards that had the bananas fruit covered with a blue plastic. The road was good and I didn’t have any problems on the way. Of course, no place to eat either, so when I arrived about 3 p.m. the first thing I did was have dinner. I turned in the truck, took my laundry to be done, bought more cough medicine and throat spray, checked back into the Hotel Tropicool and booked the tour for Coracol Archaeological site for the next day. It rained all night and was still raining a fine mist in the morning. All of the people going on the tour assembled at Eva’s. We were told even though it was still raining, the rangers at the site said the bridge was clear of water.

Caracol Archaeological site

December 13, we piled into two SUV vans and started out. The road we turned on the go the site was a muddy washboard barely two lane road from the town of Santa Elena just across the Hawksworth bridge from San Ignacio. Oh, my aching back, another kidney kicker. We slithered up and down the road only stopping at the ranger station at the site to check in with the caretakers. The station was a huge two-story building built on the side of the hill and housed the caretakers and soldiers. We traveled sixty-K on a road built just to go to the archaeological site. Besides the site caretakers they had many soldiers guarding the road and site from tomb looters and illegal border crossers from Guatemala. The soldiers accompanied us to the site in their military vehicle and then back to keep us from being bushwhacked by thugs looking for a vehicle and valuables. Coracol, which means snail, was located in an isolated area close to the Guatemala border. There were only a few villages between it and San Ignacio.

Just as soon as we started walking up the trail the mist intensified again started to come down harder. The guide had an umbrella and tried to cover as many of us as he could. Some of the others lost interest in the umbrella as soon as the temples came into view and went walking off into the rainy mist. I ended up carrying the umbrella most of the tour. I liked that, as I wasn’t into getting wet to the bone again.

The site had the biggest temples ever. Not as tall as Tikal, but the width and breath of them staggered the eye. The main plaza had a temple with Witz mountain masks on the front. Across the plaza from that, the sky temple, or Channa, was gigantic. It had rooms at the top and rooms halfway down the front side of the temple. At the top beyond the row of rooms was a temple complex arranged around a small plaza. I climbed up that one and look pictures of everything I could see. There were tombs discovered under the doorways of two of the rooms. I found a bit of a stucco frieze preserved by a fiberglass re-production. Most of the masks and stucco friezes were preserved by making fiberglass reproductions and placing them where the originals had been. There were courtyards surrounded by walls that made royal rooms. It was great. The picture on the left shows looking down from the platform steps to the lower set of rooms on the temple. We climbed down and looked at the ball court. We walked down a trail and same out at one of the acropolis complexes. The guide pointed out a boa constrictor zigzagging his way slowly up a tree. We all gathered around and gawked at him. The snake only stuck his tongue out and flicked it at us. He was a medium size only being about four feet long. We left him to his task and continued into the acropolis plaza. There were temple buildings on all four sides of the grassy courtyard. This acropolis was the only one discovered that had a ramp going up one side of it. I ran out of digital film and had to continue the rest of site using my video camera. We saw a couple of readable stele and the royal residence where they found a tomb of a royal woman. The site had two reservoirs, one that held water and one that was dry. We were shown the complex of Mayan houses the archaeologists use during the digging season. They also had an area where they stored the stele and made the fiberglass molds.

We came back out of the site just as the clouds parted and gave us a shaft of sunlight to eat lunch by. We brought packed lunches prepared by Eva’s and feasted on egg salad sandwiches, fruit and banana chips. We also had a soda and water. When we were done with lunch we visited the museum and looked at some artifacts, pictures of the excavations and a site model. The museum like all the others sites in Belize were well built stone buildings and the picnic palapas were topped with thatched roofs and had tables and benches under them. We continued down the road to an area where the Frio River flows through a cave. It was really interesting, besides being wet and slippery. The soldiers stood around holding their guns every ready for a surprise from the bushes. I gave one of them my bag of banana chips. He thanked me and slipped it into his pocket for later. The soldiers continued to escort us to the edge of the forest reserve and we had to go it alone the rest of the way down the mountain road. We made one more stop at the place called Frio Falls. We could only look over the edge of the cliff to the canyon below that held the Frio River and watch the torrential waters gush over the rocks below. On a calm day the rocks revealed they were carved out by the action of the water and made swimming pools. Today was not a day for swimming. The force of the water would have dashed us to a pulp and if we made it down the mountain we would have been scooped up into a body bag somewhere in the valley below. Maybe.

It rained on and off on the way back down the mountain. Even when we reached the low bridge that entered San Ignacio I could see the river had risen a couple of feet. It rained during the night without end.

Exit stage left, to the border

Thursday Dec 14, I picked up my bagged lunch I had prepared at Eva’s and had a taxi take my bags and me across the bridge and drop me off at the bus station office by 7:30. The bridge is to the left of the yellow sign welcoming visitors to San Ignacio. The water had reached a point where it had flowed over the low bridge and they changed the traffic flow at the Hawksworth Bridge alternating it to two-way traffic that the policemen directed back and forth. It was getting spooky with the rivers rising. There was a huge tree that wedged itself at the low bridge crossing and it was in danger of breaking the bridge. I was getting antsy to get out of town before the whole place washed away. Even though the Hawksworth Bridge and the towns on either side of the river were high enough to be out of the water it still was spooky. When the lady arrived that sold the tickets, she told me the bus would be late because the road from Flores to the border was almost impassable. I sat down and waited. I read in my book and waited. I walked to the bridge and took pictures and waited. I walked up the road to use a bathroom, bought a piece of cheesecake and when I walked back to the bus station I had to wait some more. The morning sun had broken through the clouds and the sun shone warmly, but I still had to wait. The bus station lady told me she had come from Flores the day before and almost didn’t make it as a tanker truck had jackknifed along the unpaved section and plugged up traffic both ways until they could find a vehicle to pull it out. Oh, that was happy news. I could just see missing my bus when I reached Chetumal. I passed the hours eating on my lunch sandwich, as I didn’t have breakfast. I read and paced up and down and fretted and fumed. Finally the bus came at 11:45 a.m. Four hours late. I was so happy to see him I could have kissed him, but he had had enough of a scary experience just getting the bus over the almost impassable road. I opted instead to see that my bags were loaded and got on the bus. There was hardly anyone on the bus. A couple of people spoke English, but the rest didn’t talk. I picked the front seat and settled in for the trip to Belize City.

Belize City

When we reached Belize City I was not ready for the culture shock I saw. I sure was glad I took the advice of a number of people that told me that was not the place to go, be or do things. Blocks and blocks of graveyard crypts greeted us on our way into town. We crossed the bridge and were met by another street of dumpy shacks. There were throngs of people doing business along the street at the food vendors and some tourist souvenir stands but the rest of the town was filled with rag tag people. Old colonial buildings had tin shacks crammed in between them along cramped and narrow streets. This gave a new definition to the word shabby. The buildings wore old faded peeling paint and had balconies on the second story. The tin shacks had people living inside crowded in squalor right on the main street. There was chain link fencing in front of this mess with rolls of barbwire draped on top of it. I wasn’t sure it kept them in or others out. On the other side of this row of buildings was the canal that ran through Belize City. It had boats of all sorts parked along the shore. There were lopsided buildings that hung out over the canal that must have had a purpose for serving the boats in some way. When we reached the central plaza and I could see the ocean it was still gray and bleak looking. We turned left and made our way along the ocean front street. They had one classy Casino built on the shore of the ocean and some other hotels that must have catered to the boat tourists. As we made our way out of town the streets widened and the stores and houses were further apart from each other. It still was messy and trashy. I thought it would be bigger, but it was small as cities go. I sure was glad I had not gone there on my own. I stayed on the bus and took pictures out of the window. We continued on the road to Orange Walk where we stopped to let off a Mennonite passenger at the side of the road. I watched as he unloaded his bags, then several bolts of material, several sacks of produce and a number of other things. There was no one to meet him, but I knew he would have someone coming with the horse and buggy soon, as he was not able to carry all that stuff alone. We went through Corozal and in a short while we reached the border about 3:30 p.m. We stopped at the Belize side of the border and had to get off and go through the Immigration office. I already had my Mexican visa so all I had to do was pay my exit fee of 15.00 American and re-board the bus. On the way to the bus a man was standing outside the office and exchanged my Belizean money into Pesos. I kept the coins and gave him the bills. He was all set up with a calculator and coin dispenser around his waist. I hoped he made the right change as I was in a hurry and didn’t take time to count it. We bussed a mile or so to the border and crossed the river. I could see out of the window there were a number of military gun ships parked along the shore and lots of soldiers everywhere toting rifles. We parked the bus at a stop where we all had to get off and walk our bags through the inspection light and re-board the bus again. I had a hard time getting the bags off the bus and lined up for the walk down the street. A really nice lady helped me pull one of my bags. I had the other seven. She snapped at one of the soldiers to help me and he put down his gun and pulled the other large bag I had. I got a green light and finished dragging the bags to where the bus was parked. We managed to get everything back on the bus and headed into Chetumal 20 miles away. At least I was now in Mexico and on the final leg of my journey home. I was tired from carrying my bags and would be glad to get them on the next bus.

The journey continues with volume 4 - Mexico the journey home.