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Published: October 8th 2011
We got up today around 7:45a to get ready to go to Lamanai. We went and grabbed a quick breakfast in the lobby. I had a sweet roll with some mango jam. Yvan had told us about these chicken tacos the day before and Adam really wanted to try them, so he had someone go out and get Adam some small chicken tacos with a tomato habanero sauce. They were tasty, and tiny, a lot like taquitos.
Our guide came around 9a, and there were five of us in total going - a couple from Canada (Andrew & Caleigh) who are living in Belize City and a guy from Germany (Martin). We took a short walk down to the river and boarded onto our small boat. The wind felt great and kept us cool as we enjoyed our ride. The boat ride was around 2 hours, and we got to stop a lot to look at different animals: basilisks (the lizards that run on water), different birds, spider monkeys, bats. The spider monkey's were so fast and nimble. They were really cool to watch move through the trees. The bats were really tiny and hanging out on the dark part of
a tree, until we got too close and they flew away.
We pulled up to the dock at Lamanai and walked in to a covered area to have some lunch outside the ruins. It was a traditional Belizean lunch: coconut rice, stewed chicken, potato salad and fried plantains. Also some ice cold Fanta. It was all really good.
We walked up to a map of the area. Our guide's name was Wilfredo, and as he was talking to us about what we were going to see we could hear loud, rumbling thunder. It rained a little bit, but stopped pretty quickly. We started at the "Temple of the Jaguar," where there were jaguar faces in the stone at the base of the temple. We next walked on through to the Royal Court, where Wilfredo pointed our where people slept, and we had a nice view back at the "Temple of the Jaguar." We moved onto Stela 9, a ruin with a carving (replica) depicting Lord Smoking Shell. Our guide was telling us about him, and the mosquitoes were pretty dense and annoying in the area. We could also hear and see howler monkeys up in the trees. They were
Lamanai
Temple of the Jaguarso loud!
We walked through the Ball Court (which we were told was one of the biggest of its kind) and then to the tallest temple on the site. It's about 125 feet tall. We climbed up (using a rope) and got super sweaty. Those stairs are really steep/big. The view at the top was great. We ended at the "Mask Temple" where there were large faces carved into the ruin (though they were replicas too - the originals are underneath being protected).
We walked back to where we had lunch, sat for a few minutes, drank some water and talked about what we had just seen. We then walked back to our little boat and were given some rum punch for the ride back. We cruised back much faster than when we came. We were hoping to see a crocodile, and our guide said he spotted some in the trees, but none of us saw them. Finally he found one sunning on a log. It was about 16....inches long. It was pretty cute, but mostly because it was small.
We got back to the hotel around 4:30p and we made plans to eat dinner with the people we
had met. We went to our room for a nap/hanging out for a bit. We met up with Andrew, Caleigh and Martin for dinner. We decided to go to Juanitas, which turned out to be a great choice. It was a small and local place. It had just a few choices for food. I got some rice & beans with some stewed chicken and potato salad. Adam got the Chimole, which was a spicy soup with a couple pieces of chicken and a hard boiled egg. There was also a big stack of homemade tortillas. We all got a few Belikin stouts, which were refreshing, and stayed until closing (9p). We headed back toward our hotel and said goodbye to Martin (who was staying a block or so away from us) and went back to the front of our hotel to have a few more beers with the Canadians. At 10p we decided to call it a night and part ways.
Tomorrow we pack up and head to San Ignacio.
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