Belize 2003

Sunday March 16

We awoke and were up before the alarm at 3:20 am for our 6 am flight. We taxied to the airport with Barb and Bill Bowman and met Mike and Carol Hare at the Miami airport. At Belize city airport Barb's luggage was missing and she and Bill had to fill in lots of forms. A $20US taxi trip took us to the Mopan Hotel and Barb's luggage followed about 30 minutes later. We made plans then, through the hotel to visit Lamanai on Monday morning - catching a bus at 6 am - another early morning.

Lamanai

Monday March 17

The trip to Lamanai involved a bus trip to Orange Walk, breakfast at Juanita's, our first intro to family run restaurants that serve instant coffee only, and for breakfast - eggs or eggs. At 9:15 we boarded a small launch with our guide Ignacio, and travelled up the New River. Ignatio, as all guides in Belize, could spot birds and animals for us and we would often quickly slow down and head to shore to see something like a baby croc, a sleeping lesser night hawk or a large iguana.

Lama'an'ain (submerged crocodile in Mayan), was occupied for a very long time, much longer than other Mayan cities.

Not a lot of this site is excavated but we were shown how the Maya built one temple over top of another, again and again. Dr. David M. Pendergast, an archeologist from the R.O.M. in Toronto began excavating the site in 1974 and has identified 718 structures along the lagoon on the New River. This Frieze has been exposed, protected by the roof above and as it begins to deteriorate, they will ucover the matching one on the other side.

Stella - Ignacio is explaining the numeric system of the Maya and interpreting the symbols on the stella

Getting back to Belize city was more adventuresome as we missed the Express bus and ended up taking the local bus - we got to see lots of Belizeans on their way home from work and school. The bus was a converted school bus with uncomfortable seats, music playing and a very loud horn that was used frequently. Air conditioning was achieved by having all of the windows open.
We returned to Hotel Mopan to meet our Gap group, Crystal, Gloria, Barb, Luc, Jason and Andreas - the "young'uns" and the leader Martin (also a young'un) and then we headed to Jambel's Jerk Pit for dinner