Day 18: Belize City, Belize

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Today we were moored just off Belize City, in Belize. We had to tender into shore, but it wasn't nearly as challenging as the last time we had to do that, when the ship and tender boat were bouncing around wildly, and not in unison. Our journey to the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich (pronounced Shunantoonich - with the accent on the 'nan') took about 1 1/2 hours, so we had an opportunity to see a fair bit of Belize, which is a very small country. This is the country that used to be British Honduras - and is now the only country in Central America to have English as the official language. I gather Guatemala feels that Belize should really be part of their country, so there are still some 'feelings' about that. Belize City has that look of extreme poverty mixed with high-end hotels. As we drove through the country, we saw the same mix of poverty, mixed with new homes built by mainly U.S. citizens who are settling here. The majority of the homes are VERY small, built on stilts in case of flooding. That area under the house is where we saw many people hanging out - I'm sure it is much cooler there.

As we neared the ruins, we moved from our large bus onto a small 19th century hand cranked ferry. From there, we got into smaller vans which took us close to the ruins. What a racket we heard when we got out of the vans! Someone suggested that we were hearing the roars of extinct dinosaurs. Someone else suggested caged jaguars. Bob wondered if it might be some corny sound effects somehow related to the ruins we were about to see. It turned out to be howler monkeys! We never realized they could make such eerie, very loud noises - more like a roar than a howl. It was the sound of the dominant male warning other males to keep away from his ladies.

The Mayan ruins were every bit as impressive as I anticipated they would be. El Castillo is the largest pyramidal structure there (130 ft., 40 m - and yes, we did climb it!), and it has a magnificent restored frieze near the top. Most of the structures date from the Maya Classic Era, about 200 to 900 AD. There is evidence that some structures were damaged by an earthquake while they were occupied; this earthquake may have been a reason for the site's abandonment. The core of Xunantunich occupies about one square mile (2.6 km²), consisting of a series of six plazas surrounded by more than 26 temples and palaces. The temperature was probably well up into the 90's but nevertheless, it was a dream come true to actually be there, and see what was created so long ago. Our guide, a Mayan himself, had lots of stories and information to share with us. Then we retraced our steps back to the ship, where we recuperated from another great, but very tiring (due to heat) day.

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