Belize Lamanai Ruins

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Belize is gorgeous, very flat, very tropical. I had been here before and done the snorkle thing, as well as another trip doing the jungle thing, so decided to do the educational thing this time to the Lamanai Ruins, deep in the jungle by boat. My shore excursion left at 8:05 from the lounge, then a 45 minute tender wait was figured into the tour time of 7.5 hours, leaving us just enough time to catch the last tender back to the ship (a 15 minute ride). We boarded the "air conditioned bus" for an hour drive north, about as far as the paved road goes in Belize, to the Old Belize river. A nice Palapa had been built to begin these boat trips to Lamanai, a major archaeological site discovered & excavated by a Canadian in the early 20th century. The boat trip was remote, up through the jungle, monkeys, crocs, a type of pirana fish, lots of iguana in the trees. The boat held 44 of us, and I sat up front, a very important note and I"ll tell you in a minute. On arival, there was nothing there except the boat dock and a set of restrooms. I had read somewhere to bring bug spray, so I brought wipes with DEET. Man did we need them. I was hadning them out to everyone I knew on the trip, it was a jungle out there! We walked for what seemed like a mile through paths cut between trees, their roots trying to trip us up. After our trek, there we were, facing the first of the pyramids. Another shorter walk took us to the ball court, it's true what the movie Appolyptco portrayed, the winner of the ball game was sacrificed to the gods, they always gave them their best to get the best back from the gods. So we're walking up these stairs at the biggest pyramid, and all I could thing of then were the heads rolling down the stairs. Shouldn't have put that in my mind, I kind of freaked out going back down. SO back to the boat, I was tardy after helping a girl who fell on her butt along the way. NEVER be last to the boat! I sat on the back row of seats, each time we went around a corner in the river water ran over the edge onto the bench we were sitting. I was soaked. The the boat's fuel tank got flooded with water and we were stranded in the river for a while until another boat brought a gas can to put the fuel line directly into to make itback to the base. A marginal buffet lunch was served. Then back on the bus for the ride back to town, making it there JUST in time for the last tender. No time to spare.

After arriving back at the ship, I showered and just couldn't drag myself out to dinner. So watched "Larry Crowne" which was really pretty cute, then pulled on some shorts for the buffet dinner. Couldn't get into any of the entertainment, I am really out of sorts getting up at 4:00am Seattle time to go out on these all day adventures. Having another in the morning I decided to loll around the cabin, reading, watching E! - what a wierd chanel.

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