The rest of Saturday

At the end of our technical breakout upstairs where the defunct board is, we were called to lunch. The school cooks had come in to prepare lunch for the seminary class and the college visitors, and we were invited to join them. We had jerk chicken (what a surprise) and beans and rice, unless it was rice and beans (even more a surprise). I am writing this on Friday (or from the perspective of someone who sees the blog as being in the present on Saturday I will be writing it on Friday), and which meals were beans and rice and which were rice and beans has become blurred in my memory.

After wrapping up our business at the school, we hit the road for the Lamanai ruin. The ruin was 28 miles from the highway, but the first several miles were paved or smoothly graded gravel. Eventually we ran out of smooth and got back to our accustomed potholes. We went through Mennonite country again and saw many horses and buggies, some driven by children. Since they do have cars and trucks, I speculated that fodder is cheaper than gasoline when you have a farm. We were amused to see a buggy carrying several 10-foot pieces of PVC tubing. We just never associate modern technical activities with people who use horses as their major means of transportation.

Dave guessed correctly at every unmarked turn (when Ray was with us we were always urged to go to the left), and we reached the ruin shortly before it was scheduled to close. With what I am beginning to think is typical casualness about closing time among park rangers, we were told to take as much time as we wanted. I don't know what they could have done anyway other than close the visitor center and the gift shop, since the parking lot was outside the gate.

Lamanai means "Place of the crocodile". It is unusual among Mayan ruins in being spread out along the banks of a lagoon, the New River Lagoon on the New River, the longest river that is completely within Belize. This is the river that our hotel and Sunday's restaurant are on. Most of the Mayan temple sites are compact and built around a central plaza. Diet and economy were probably very different from those at temple sites in the jungle away from water like Caracol, the capital city of the Mayans in the Belize region, but there are in fact several ruins within an easy walk of a river.

We climbed the High Temple, which was indeed high. The steps are 16-18 inches high going up and higher going down. They had a rope hung along one of the sections so you could go hand-over-hand, which especially made the descent easier. It will be Thursday before the muscles in the front of my thighs stop hurting.

The view from the top was great. You could probably see into Mexico, although there was nothing to indicate the border. My globe has Belize in yellow and Mexico in blue, but the real thing was mostly green. To the south we could see the Mennonite farms, to the north the lagoon. We were joined on the summit by a group of Mennonites. Their speech sounded more Dutch than German to me, especially when one asked another to point out "dain huis". A couple of grandmothers had made most of the climb. They didn't go the final few steps to the summit, but sat and chatted just below the top. I certainly wouldn't put in all that effort to get to the almost top and not finish, even though the open space without a railing at that height makes me uncomfortable. Especially when I am staggering from the strain on my legs to get up there.

On the grounds we saw keel-billed toucans, white-fronted parrots, and several black howler monkeys. There was vegetation in profusion, with many kinds of flowers. I saw an aloe tree and a few varieties of spices. There were many bromeliads growing on the bark of trees.

We went home a different way. I think you could say we weren't lost since we ended up in Orange Walk Town just a few blocks from the restaurant where we had decided to have supper. We had been reassuring ourselves about our direction by looking at the sun, but suddenly it was gone, and very shortly thereafter it was dark. No long twilight here.

At the restaurant I spoke to a group of people who had been trying to help me see a parrot, which I eventually saw when it flew. They are ex-pat who run a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center a few miles south of Orange Walk. They said there used to be a lot of marijuana growing in the cane fields (did I mention that we had seen trucks lined up for maybe half a mile delivering cane to the mill?). I got the impression that alcoholism is pretty serious, but they are not so far from the modern world that they are not also into crack cocaine.

After supper I strolled around downtown again. I had to do some shopping for a few items that I always bring to Shirley Knight as a reminder of our first trip to Belize. I was also supposed to find the Anglican church and the restaurant for tomorrow's breakfast. I walked between 16 and 20 blocks and found the items for Shirley and the church. I was several blocks from the restaurant when I was accosted by a couple of women sitting on a streetlamp base with their little girls. They wanted to know if I was lost, and I told them I knew where I was going at the end of my search, but I didn't know where the restaurant was. I think they were concerned about my safety, because after they told me how to find the restaurant they told me not to go down there because it is a dangerous place at night. I enjoyed the interchange, especially flirting with the little girls (about 2 and 3 years old). After I got back to the hotel I wrote this blog entry, but it didn't go through and I didn't think to save it, so I am writing it again. Silly me.

Peace,
Chuck