Snorkeling the Cayes

Our first full day at the beach was spent bouncing around some of the offshore Cayes. 

The Barrier Reef that separates the Mangrove Coast of Belize from the Caribbean is, according to local  propaganda, the second-longest barrier reef in the world. Stretching from Mexico to Honduras, the reef complex included thousands of small Cayes, ranging from a few palm trees to dozens of acres, with various levels of development. Although they are only about 10-15km off shore, they are flat-lying, with no point higher than a palm tree, so you really can't see them from the beach.

We met up with Captain Patrick at the marina on the Settee River, and after pointing out the crocodiles in the water, he took us through the mangrove swamp and estuary to the open ocean.

We snorkeled in crystal clear water at two locations south of Southwater Caye.  The water out here in the middle of the freaking ocean was shallow enough that we had to be cautious around the coral, but deep enough in spots that I could not dream of diving to touch bottom. The coral was a diverse and delicate as anywhere I have been, and the fish as varied an colorful. Everything I know about fish I learned from the great Ichthyologist Dr. Seuss, and I can assure you there were more than two fish, and they were found in colors including red and blue. Barracuda, especially, look ferociously cool. But not as cool as The Aquatic Tigger:

We had lunch on Southwater Caye, sitting on a sparkling white beach with only a few palms around. Southwater is home to only a couple of very expensive resorts, so it was nice to be able to squat on their expensive facilities if only for a couple of hours.

After lunch we did a "drift snorkel" along the outside of the reef. With the longshore current pulling us along, and the ocean dropping off to some nasty depth to one side, we were able to see very far down between sandy bottoms and towering reefs. Again, more diversity than I have seen anywhere We have snorkeled before. No sharks, although one of our group did spot a Spotted Ray (it was Spotted prior to his spotting it).

The water was warm and the sun was bright. Oh boy, do I have the sunburn to prove it. 

Lower Dover

While up in San Ignacio, we stayed about 20km out of town at a guest house called Lower Dover. Buried deep in the jungle, Lower Dover is 100 acres of... well... just about everything. There are a couple of well-appointed but simple cabins (and a couple of not-so-in a large grove of fruit and other trees, chickens, sheep, a small pack of ferociously friendly dogs, a swimming hole in the river running through, and walking trails through the forest, where you can see an array of as-of-yet unexcavated Mayan ruins. 

The hosts, ex-pats from various parts of the United States (although based on the prevalence of Badgers paraphernalia around, Wisconsin was clearly Home), have owned the land since shortly after Belize became an independent country in 1981, but have been operating the guest house for about 5 years. 

On Christmas night. The hosts held a Pig Roast, for the guests and for the various staff and helpers they have in the local village. We ate with the son of the owners, his girlfriend down visiting from America, a pretty cool young couple from Tennessee, and a female doctor from Sand Francisco traveling alone. Conversation was fun and wide-ranging, with quite a few Belikins, mostly because the Pig was putting up a good fight, and we ate few hours after the planned start of the roast. 

The good doctor was smart and funny, the couple from Tennessee were a Genetics researcher and a Biology Grad Student who were well aware of the works of Rebecca Watson, and the owners son was convinced that Ron Paul was going to be the next President if the United States, not because he supported Ron Paul,  but because Ron Paul was secretly a fifth-degree FreeMason and it has already been decided. Oh, and the lady next door can cure all cancers with a few magic ingredients she found in the Rain Forrest, but the Government kicked her out of Canada for curing people... 

Good humor was had. 

The biology of the area was potentially interesting, if I was a Biologist. Tig was excited to see fireflies for the first time since we left the Mid West. The forest was riddled with those bizarre 4-inch wide trails and 4-foot wide anthills that can only be made by leaf cutter ants. The sandflies munched happily on our ankles at night, and our host made a point of showing off the resident tarantulas.

Yet somehow, we slept well. 

In the end, Tig and I found something common to Lower Dover that we noticed in guest houses owned by American and European Ex-pats in Costa Rica, and I have noticed staying in lodges in the middle on nowhere in Northern BC. The type of people who leave, say, Wisconsin, to move to a Rain Forest in the middle of nowhere are generally doing that for a reason. They are seeking a certain lifestyle away from the everyday, and often decide to open a Guest House as a way to support their lifestyle. Unfortunately, the get-away-from-it-all personality type is not always the best for running as intensely a customer-oriented business as a guest house. Madeline, our hostess, strangely seemed to bend over backwards to be friendly and helpful, but never seemed to do the "little things" that would actually make you comfortable. Her husband was generally grumpy. She and her son both broke the cardinal rule of having dinner with a large group of unfamiliar guests: they talked politics. 

Luckily, everyone became adequately sauced enough waiting for the Pig to come out of the coals that the humor was kept up, and everyone had fun. but when we left, it was time to go.

East to Hopkins

A couple of days at Lower Dover were enough, and were definitely enough for a friend we made at the place. Nayer was traveling alone, and was looking for a ride east. Without a fixed destination, Hopkins sounded O.K. to her, and she was cool enough to have along. 

We drove east along the Hummingbird Highway towards the coast. The road was in better shape than our rental, so all went well. Mostly we were driving through orange orchards, but there were a few things to see along the way. First we stopped at Hermann's Cave, which involved a short hike through the jungle to a significant hole in the world.

We took an unguided walk into the abyss, although you will have to take my word for the size and scope, as caves dozens of metres high and hundreds of metres long do not generally photograph well. 

As I warned before, my interface sucks, even more than my photography skills, so you may be getting shrunk, deleted, or blank photos, or most irritating of late, photos with the right 1/4 clipped off. I am bad at taking photos, but not so bad that the subject is cut off mid-face! click the photo to view in all their supposed majesty.

After the cave, we took a side hike to a lookout tower nearby. It had a nice view over the surrounding citrus orchards, although it was stinking hot and humid, and Tig was clearly feeling the Panty Rippers from the night before:

not that you can blame her.. 

So to cool off, we went for a dip in the Great Blue Hole. the one in the National Park,not the one that is a Unesco World Heritage Site. You see, when it comes to Great Blue Holes, Belize has an embarrassment of riches. Some countries have none, Canada's only one is completely occupied by the money of the Maple Leafs owners. Belize, with a population little more than 300,000 spread over and area 2/3rd that of Vancouver Island,  has no less than two distinct, and non-connected Great Blue Holes. 

This one is a collapsed limestone cave in the jungle, filed usually with iridescent blue water. on the day of our visit, there had been recent rains, o the Blue Hle was more distinctly Green, however it was cool and clear, and a very refreshing dip after the hike through the jungle in 90 degree heat and 100% humidity.

Seeking food along the Hummingbird Highway, we sought the best bakery in Belize, with Cinnimon Buns to die for. It was run by traditional Mennonites (of which there are several in Belize), so the sigh on the door when we arrived said "Jesus is the Reason for the Season", which is Mennonite for " bugger off, we're closed". Jesus having once again denied Tig happiness, we had to settle for the opposite: a well made burger at a faux-Swiss chalet with a heart-shaped floor plan called the House of Love.

Although it may not have been the most unusual architectural choice we saw on that road (and you have to zoom in to appreciate this):

...and so it went Down the Hummingbird Highway, so named for the widest vehicle that could safely pass two abreast down parts of it.

Until we got to Hopkins, which is a dusty one-road town of clap-board buildings, Chinese groceries, a few restaurants, and accommodations from $10/night hostels to $200/ night guest houses. But we will be here for a week, and we are on the Beach, so I will talk about that later...

In the Pines, where the sun refused to shine.

I am starting to have my doubts about the entire iPad interface. To do anything on an iPad, you need to download multiple "apps", all of which require you to sign up for other services, which all need to log into each other, and all need to be able the share all kinds of data a put my personal life and whereabouts, just to copy a simple photo to a webpage. I'm starting to think an iPad is really just a clever marketing and data mining device. 

Rant over, except to say I had an easier time blogging from Africa using a Palm Pilot 4. If you actually want to see the photos I have posted to go along with this blog, you might need to click on them, and who the hell knows what Dick Cheney will do with your address and birthdate if you need to "log in".

Today we decided to drive further into the Mayan mountains to the Mountain Pine Ridge.

It goes like this: at some point, if you drive far enough into the Mayan Mountains, the rocks change from limestone to granite. Given enough elevation (about 1000 metres) and granitic soils, you are no longer surrounded by rainforest jungle, but it opens up and you are surrounded by pine trees. The high plateau, rolling topography and open pine forests give the impression of being in the Cariboo or northern Okanagan. Except it is stinking hot, even on Boxing Day, even when it rains. 

We bounced along a few dozen kilometers (or "miles" as they call them here) of debris-strewn lines of jagged rocks that had recently experienced intensive artillery barrages (or "roads" as they call them here), but the rental Suzuki/Chevy Crapper seemed content to take the beating.  We stopped at a couple of random villages in the middle of the jungle, and saw some remarkable stone carving, both ancient and modern. We received it on good authority from and elderly Mayan stone carver and house painter that the world will not be ending in 2012... but she suggested Climate Change may get us yet. She seemed authoritative, judging by the Mayan Gods adorning her house.

We slipped down a muddy road at one point, dipping back into the limestone and the jungle, to see the Rio Frio Cave. This 40 metre high cavern passes for a few hundred metres through a limestone cliff, with gaping openings on both sides, but there is abit abit of acurve in the cave, making it vaguely Macaroni- shaped. The Rio Frio passes through, and there are beautiful stactites and other limestone features on the less accessible far wall. Tig assures me there were no spiders to be found amongst the dark crevices we scrambled past.

Back up into the Pines, we found our way to the Rio Frio Pools.  Here the "Cold River" passes over some polished granite rapids, leaving a long series of pools and riffles, just large enough to swim across and deep enough to dive into. The sun steadfastly refused to shine, and there were even few sprinkles of rain, but down here at 17 degrees north of the equator, it was stil refreshing to take a dip in the pools and attempt not to be swept over shoals to... well, not really death, but likely a skinned knee or two. So we swam and knocked back the hyperthermia for a while. 

I have been drinking Belikin Beer. Not because it is good, but because it is the only beer available. There is one brewery in Belize, and they produce a slightly syrupy, overly sweet and distinctly spiceless Belekin Lager. They also sell a stout, which I have not seen yet, but (having not found the lager lacking in sugar content) I can imagine it is served in wide- mouth jars to facilitate a molasses-like texture. There is third beer, Lighthouse, which is the "low calorie option", primarily because it is served in 250ml bottles. Reast assured, it is Belikin Lager that is preferred by bikini-clad ladies (according to the advertising I have seen), so Belikin Lager it is for me. 

According to a semi-local we met, this is due to an effective monopoly on beer making granted the Belikin family. They also own the rights to sell Coca-Cola nationwide, and I have to admit I have not seen a Pepsi product in my week here. 

Tig has been testing various combinations of fresh-squeezed fruit juice and rum. Fanta Club Soda, when available, has been a good cut. The national drink is a coconut flavored rum mixed with pineapple juice over rocks, affectionately called a "Panty Ripper". Tig had one tonight. I will report on the effects in a later post.

Xunantunich

Our first exposure to Mayan Belize was at Xuantunich, which is a few Kilometres  on this side of the Guatemalan border.  

To reach Xuantunich, you need to cross a small river, which is facilitated by a small one-car ferry that is powered by... wait for it... a hand-crank. The guy with the burliest fore-arms in the Belize Civil Service literally cranks a wheel connected to a cable and drags you and your car across the sleepy river. 

A mile up the hill from the ferry, past the iguanas guarding the limestone walls, you happen upon a site of various excavated ruins of a City that supported probably up to  10,000 people during the rise and fall of the Mayan Empire, between about 200 BC and 1000 AD. 

A series of temple-like structures are found, all built without the benefit of metal tools or beasts of burden. the local rock is almost all limestone, so this served as the primary building material, and with lots of trees to burn, the Mayans learned to slake lime and make a cement mortar to hold the rough- hewn limestone blocks together. the basic technique was to pile flattish rocks up, then use block-cut stones around the outside for support and to provide the aesthetic facia. 

Some ornately carved facia - frieze - were excavated on this site, and although the originals were removed and kept for protection in a museum, replicas were installed where the originals were discovered back in the mid-20th Century, after about 1000 years of being buried in the jungle. 

The Maya actually went into sharp decline about the time these that the largest structures at Xuantunich were being built. There was no major disaster, disease, war or anything that coincides with the decline, it is speculated that it was a general resource decline. Essentially, they were so good at extracting resources that they stripped the livability out of the surrounding countryside then suffered a population drop that prevented them from continuing to live int he same society as they had built.  

 

The Maya were around when Cortez arrived, and their defendants survive today, but the Classical Mayan society had been gone for 500 years. The temples may have had something to do with it, because in a late stone age culture that built temples to the Gods to thank them for resources, the only logical response to resource loss is to build better temples. Fans of Jared Diamond know this story well, but fellow Lower Mainalnd blogger Stephen Rees wrote a cool piece about this recently. The parallels with modern society are pretty speculative, but interesting to consider. 

Welcome to Belize

The last 36 hours have seen us in, literally, planes (3), trains (2), and automobiles (2) . Apparently Belize is easy to get to, but it just takes a little time.

United Airlines did not help, starting us off with a delayed flight, terrible customer service at check-in, a plane that finally departed an hour after the last bar in the U.S. Departures area of YVR had closed, and a very shabby 757 is was. But we were, as Louis CK says, sitting in a chair in the sky.

The 757 was not as bad as the 737 that United put us on in Houston. I have flown in puddle jumpers in Cuba and in float planes to Northern BC, I have taken extreme discount flights between islands in South East Asia, this is the first time I have ever knowingly taken off to fly over water with piece of the wing broken off. I know it is only an aerelon trim tab, but there was hunk of that sucker broken clean off. Just missing. Gone.  

Customs and Immigration was a breeze and we were picked up by our rental car guy, who drove us through the streets of Belize City to his office, where we were first exposed to Belize hospitality. As we waited for our rental car to be prepped, Tig started asking about good restaurants as we were getting a little hungry. No owner did a couple of hot tamales come out, and we had an incredible home-made lunch in a rental car office in a dirt-road neighborhood somewhere in South Central Belize City.

Once fed and insured, we drove inland to San Ignacio, a busy little town way up the Belize River valley, a hundred kilometers into the jungle where the landscape starts to rise into the Maya Mountains.  This area is surrounded with Mayan history, and with various ruins In various states of discovery and exploitation for tourist dollars. So San Ignacio has a street or two of very tourist- oriented businesses, with t-shirts, crafts, tours and happy hours. It immediately became apparent that Belizeans are the type of people who like their music highly amplified. Tig is happy that we are staying outside of town at a site called Lower Dover ( more on that later). 

We got to town just in time to provision at the weekly Farmers Market, 

Stop at the Chinese Grocery to buy beer and rum, and other accessories, before everything closed up for the few days around Christmas. 

It being Christmas Eve, more than once while walking the streets of San 

Ignacio, we were set upon by a roving high school marching band. A line of dancers, an 8-piece horn section, a couple of glockenspiels, and about a 12-piece rhythm section. They were accompanied by Santa Claus, who looked very well tanned for a fellow who frequented the North Pole, and was apparently distributing gifts the town children. 

Thoroughly entertained, we had some Christmas Eve Happy Hour action on San Ignacio's main street and watched the world go by, then ate an incredible curry dinner at the best Sri Lankan restaurant in Belize.

Then, after 36 hours of traveling, we slept well. Tig even slept through the Celebratory Christmas fireworks -Tig sleeping through loud noise: truly a Christmas Miracle.