Hanging out on the beach in Cozumel, another couple heard us enthusiastically discussing our trip to Chichen Itza and interrupted our conversation. "If you really want to see some amazing Mayan ruins you MUST go to Belize and Guatemala!" After hearing them describe their previous year's vacation we decided that our next stop would indeed continue into "el Mundo Maya". We did take note of our new friends warning that, while the coast and cays of Belize were a popular mecca for scuba divers (having the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world), this being 1996 the INTERIOR parts were still fairly untraveled and conditions were, shall we say, rustic. So we outfitted ourselves in our best Indiana Jones fashion and set off for our Mayan Adventure.
To ease our transition, I booked us into what I had read in the guide books was to be a luxury hotel - The Maruba Resort. And at first glance it appeared to be truly lovely and exotic with nice people meeting us in the lobby carrying delicious tropical drinks. We were staying in a beautifully appointed native thatched hut, family style. Everything was going swimmingly until nightfall. In case you ever plan a similar trip, let me just give you a heads up: nighttime in the jungle is NOT when the native fauna tucks itself into sleep. Nighttime in the jungle is PARTY CENTRAL for those charming nocturnal critters. This includes the myriad of native INSECT life that abounds in the rainforest. And here is where we discovered A) insect repellant containing a high amount of DEET works very well except in the places you missed putting it on - i.e. the SOLES OF YOUR FEET (oops!); B) thatched roofs look really quaint but don't do diddly-squat to keep out the GIANT RAINFOREST COCKROACHES causing much squealing and jumping up on beds and crying amongst the female contingent of our party (the male member of our group was none too pleased to have to be the roach vanquisher either); and C) squealing and jumping on beds causes a peculiar phenomenon whereby suddenly it begins to rain tiny Central American frogs down from the ceiling onto all the squealers and jumpers thus causing the cycle to continue. And no one thought to bring out the video camera to film this sequence (there was no youtube to post it to anyway).
After somehow getting through our night's excitement, we were off the next day to see our first Mayan ruins: the site of Altun Ha. A word about the Mayan ruins in Belize in 1996. The Belizeans (?) had juuuusst sort of figured out that they might be able to attract more of a tourist trade if they actually started to dig out some of the rich assortment of ancient Mayan cities they had found traces of in their jungles. I am sure many of the sites I am going to show you pics of look very different today. As in they have may been fully excavated and roped off to tourists (of which I'll bet there are a lot more than there were when we were there). But I have to admit it was really cool to see the ruins arising out of the living jungle, more or less untouched, and to be able to climb the pyramids and poke around like amateur archeologists.
 |
| Altun Ha |
I'm going to let the pics speak for themselves (mainly 'cause I have no idea what any of the building were - nothing was labeled and I just don't remember what was what from the guide book).
The next day we took the boat trip up the New River to see the ancient site of Lamanai which means "submerged crocodile" in Mayan. I really wonder what this looks like now - when we were there we were practically the only ones - no tour buses or groups, no concession stands or souvenir stores. It was paradise.
 |
| Off on our boat ride to Lamanai |
 |
| The New River |
 |
| A Jacana |
 |
| The walk was a bit rugged - this ain't Disney |
 |
| The walk through the jungle to the ruins |
 |
| the ruins emerge from the jungle |
 |
| S and the guy from "Legends of the Hidden Temple" |
 |
| the jungle also emerges from the ruins |
 |
| my 6 year old jungle explorer atop the Lamanai pyramid |
 |
| The great pyramid - G & I had to climb this but S was too sweaaaty to come, leading her to remark, "Mommy and G are never going to come back and they are going to die and we are NEVER going to have lunch!" |
 |
| famous stellae |
 |
| some of us were less happy with our lovely picnic lunch |
This was a great introduction to the Mundo Maya - and it only gets better!...Stay tuned for my next post, "Belize Believer part 2 - Banana Bank and Coracol"!
No comments:
Post a Comment