cruise day 5 - Belize

Wednesday, December 12th.  12/12/12  - visiting a Mayan ruin.  thank goodness it wasn't 12/21/12  (that is when the world was supposed to end, according to some people's interpretation of the Mayan Calendar... (that obviously didn't happen as scheduled)

This was a tour that I really, really wanted to go on, from the first day I started looking at excursions for our cruise.  Trouble is, we waited too long to book anything, and everything was sold out.  We found a tour company that had a 3 person minimum, so we booked that one, hoping to find a third person on the ship who might want to join us, knowing we would have to pay for that 3rd spot if we didn't.  Well, we didn't find anyone to join us, so we spent WAY too much money in this port, but I LOVED it!  It was a great tour and I would do it again.  

A termite nest.  There were millions of them - EVERYWHERE!

see - here's another one!  I found them fascinating!  I even touched one in Honduras was amazed by the delicate material it is made of.  Where I touched my finger to the nest, it just instantly crumbled, and I barely put any pressure at all, I just wanted to see what it felt like, I wasn't trying to break it or anything, yet it crumbled enough that it left an indent of my finger.  So interesting.

The big challenge in Belize is TIME.  We simply did not have enough!  I would have loved a few more hours at the ruins, or a more leisurely boat ride on the river, or a few detours to see more of the country on the drive back...  Belize is a tender port, meaning they don't have the huge docks for the ginormous cruise ships to pull into, so we had to join the herds of people trying to get on the tender boats to shuttle us in to land.  Then it was an hour drive to the village of Orange Walk, where we would hop on a boat for the 45 minute ride down river to the Lamanai archeological site.  

The drive out gave us a chance to see the humble circumstances of the people, and the boat ride was calm and fun to see a bit of "nature."  Mostly birds, and one crocodile on the way back.

tiny little houses,  many of them built on stilts for the flood season.  many of them homesteading on government property, hoping if they live there long enough, the government will let them buy it, but knowing that any day they can be kicked off the land and have to start all over somewhere else.

 

 

 

This may seem silly, but this was one of my favorite "finds."  While we were waiting for the others who would be on our boat ride, I found this cool thing in their outdoor kitchen, where the prepared out lunch.  I wondered about it, thinking it looked like a juicer, like for citrus, except that the jagged metal rounded end would shred right through the peels.  I asked someone, and in fact is it a coconut shredder.  They split the coconuts in half, then used this to shred the "meat" of the coconut.  I thought it was really cool!

on the boat ride out to Lamanai

birds taking flight.

arrival at the Lamanai site

 We arrived at the ruins and enjoyed a yummy "belizian" (is that a real word?) lunch, then went with our tour guide to check out the excavated ruins.  there are lots and lots of "mounds" there that have yet to be excavated, but the temples that have been uncovered are incredible.  

You're just walking through the jungle, and suddenly, there is a Temple.  Like it just pops up out of nowhere.  

Not the greatest picture, but added so you can see what I mean.  just walking through the jungle, you round a corner... and KA-POW - huge Mayan Temple right there!

 

Unlike Tulum, we were able to climb the ruins here.  The first temple was the "Mask Temple" - named for the carved faces.  

The next, and largest temple was next.  It isn't named, just identified by the archeological dig/structure number, N10-43.  I climbed about 1/2 way up before I freaked out and went back down.  The steps were so narrow and steep, and crumbling...  They had a rope for you to hold on to while climbing, but it was too scary for me still.  I read somewhere that the Mayans built the steps to their temples steep like that so that those climbing would have to keep their eyes lowered while they climbed - as a sign or token of humility and respect for the Gods. 

I made it 1/2 way up then want down and settled for a picture of me by the masks on the first tier of the temple. you can kind of see how small and narrow the steps are...

the gorgeous view Tim took from the top.  From the river we hadn't even noticed the temple back there.  Apparently this city was a big "commerce" location, people coming here from up and down river to trade.

I think this is about when I called up to Tim and said I was turning around.  (I'm the one in the purple'ish shirt) The tier below me is where I took the picture of me by the faces, not to be confused with the face at the Mask temple), then you climb down another set of steps (but not so narrow and scary) to the ground - which is at the very top of this picture.

Next we walked though a "Ball court,"  then the foundation remains of the "royal complex," and then to the Jaguar Temple.  

again, not a great picture, since we were looking into the sun, but we are standing among the foundation ruins of the royal complex and if you enlarge the picture and look beyond those trees, you can see the Jaguar temple in the background

Our tour guide pointing out the "face" of the jaguar.  look closely.  Hint:  his hand is in the jaguar's ear.

can you see the jaguar yet?  no STONE LION...  but close???

 Tim climbed to the tops of all 3 temples at this site.  I partially climbed all of all...  (that fear of heights just gets the better of me.)

Right near the end of our tour, we heard a very strange sound.   Our guide figured out pretty quick that I am extremely gullible and he had me convinced that the sound I was hearing was a wild jaguar.  I was a little concerned!  Turns out it was just a troop of howler monkeys.  It was SO amazing to see them in the wild and hear there howling back and forth at each other.

Howler monkey

We took our boat ride back to Orange Walk, then raced back to the ship.  We made it just in time - the next to last tender ship!  (this was not a cruise sponsored excursion, so we had no guarantee that that the ship would wait for us if we didn't make it back - so we were very grateful to get back in time.)

The Crocodile we saw on the boat ride back to Orange Walk

when we got back to our room, we found "towel friend # 2" - a cute little piggy!

That night after dinner, we went to the ships presentation of "HASBRO - the GAME SHOW."  We had watched the show the first night they did it and it was fun to watch and I decided I wanted to try to get up on stage and play.  I did make it on stage, and our team even won our game so we made it to the final round - where you pick a monopoly card thing, and slide it into the ATM looking thing, and whoever ends up with the highest amount of "money" wins a big prize.  (a whole bunch of Hasbro games...  I really did want to win - they would have made awesome Christmas presents!)  I didn't win :(  but it was fun anyway.  And a funny side note... as my consolation prize, I won the card game "Monopoly Deal."  We brought it home and it is the kids FAVORITE game.  They play it at least 2 -3  times a day!!!    Best souvenir they got!

OH MAN!  only 4,000 -  I lose!