Disclaimer: this is a pretty long blog entry, with lots of photos. Take heart, however- there are monkeys. lots of them.
Ok, so with that out of the way, welcome to Belize! AKA British Honduras a long time ago, AKA this very strange place where the people speak English/Spanish/AND Kriol, and they even have their own special way to tell time (basically, just be 15 minutes late to everything, then you've got it).
Trev, Kim and I had all reached our respective boiling points at work, and desperately needed a break, sun, and Belikin beer. We arrive midday and set off to Orange Walk Town, a small town near the Northwest corner of the state which is near THE longest standing functional Mayan civilization, Lamanai.
On the way, we thought- hey. What about monkeys? yeah. Lets check out some monkeys.
First stop- Community Baboon Sanctuary!
We drove down some questionable roads for a definitely questionable period of time when we were flagged down by a rasta dude and directed into what may or may not have been our intended destination. Still, our guide, Shane, was awesome, apparently studied in NYC and London, and came home to Belize to start his own tourist attraction/sustainable monkey community. He was a vegetarian, liked to rescue lost carpenter ants, and had VERY strong feelings about the colors red green and yellow. He was cool.
Shane led us on a gentle hike through the jungle where we saw.......
Howler Monkey!
They are really baboons, but they are locally and historically known as black howler monkeys for their undeniably creepy howls. See Trev's youtube station here for recordings:
They say George Romero recorded these very sounds for his zombie flicks.
Bettie is not the best photographer, but she makes up for it later. keep reading.
the gang under a giant, really old tree! Shane gave us those weird swishy thingies to swat flies off ourselves while we walked through the jungle.
Next, we drove to the site of inspiration for label on Belize's national beer, Belikin. It looks something like this:
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| belikin-its not that bad! |
Altun Ha on a Sunday afternoon was in general snoozing, except for this one guy- he told us his name probably 3 or 4 times, but I'm still not sure (Puck?) but he was incredible awesome at harvesting coconut for us. After he dropped a few pieces on the ground, no biggie. 5 second rule applies double abroad.
We enjoyed some ruins, did a fair amount of climbing up ancient rocks.
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If you look closely, you can see Bettie at the top
guess the beer label is pretty accurate. |
On the way out from the ruin site, we wondered why we had to fly from CT to NC to BTZ when Boston was just a short drive away...
We arrive in the sleepy, romantic, and overall run-down (read- poverty-striken) town of Orange Walk Town hungry, tired and full of sun and happiness. We find one singular road stand open, eat him out of house and tortas, and call it a night.
Next morning, we take a boat ride down the "river of strangers" to Lamanai, the land of the submerged crocodile. We met a few friends along the way.
Giant blue heron
thoughtful looking Bettie
Thoughtful looking Kim
See the tiny, barely noticeable somewhat diamond shaped dark brown spots on this tree? those are bats. Who would know?! our guide said these are the only pleasant bats in the entire country, as they are vegetarians or something. The validity of most guide spoken statements needs to be validated, but interesting nonetheless.
Driving along, the guide asks our motley (read- everyone is 60+ except for us) crew whether we like monkeys. Oh, DO WE EVER! I think some days Trevor wishes he were born a monkey.
We motor over to a tree grove, with bananas in hand, and spider monkeys come flying onto our boat demanding our women and our bootey! Not really, but they were somewhat pirate-like. We escaped unscathed, however later on we heard a story of a young boy getting casually mauled by a spider monkey over something shiny. We hoped a few members of our awkward and at times obnoxious boat tourist group would suffer the same fate, but to no avail. I can say honestly I will never, ever wear a skort after this trip. But I digress.
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| Bettie redeems herself in photographic prowess! Trev and Monkey bond. |
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| Playmonkey Centerfold April 2012 |
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We safely arrive at Lamanai, the longest lasting Mayan civilization known. This particular temple was incredibly impressive, until we were informed that they faces carved in the side were in fact replicas placed directly on top of the real thing, to protect the original carving. Oh, lies! Still, the temples were really cool and really old.
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the guide told us that although this was a Mayan civilization, the faces had a Olmec-like features, indicating some level of cross-cultural love affairs.
(wasn't Olmec the name of the talking foam thing on legends of the hidden temple on nickelodeon?) |
We climbed to the top of a truly terrifying, cliff wall-like temple (The High Temple, aptly named) and got an incredible view probably all the way to Guatemala.
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| Sometimes it's tough to choose between "watch your step" and "don't look down" |
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More howler monkeys made themselves known with their telltale horrifying rumble!
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| good thing I didn't spend a good part of the last year watching The Walking Dead with the walkers howler-like wails...oh, wait. the zombie world will never be the same again. |
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| jaguar temple, complete with un-retouched jaguar countenance on its base. The Mayans believed Jaguars had religious and mystical powers, and could cross between the world of the living and the dead. |
CROCODILE!!!!!
After a day of boating and archaeology, we explore a bit and find a tortilla chip factory right in town. Considering we are a group of chip connoisseurs, we are obviously obliged to buy a bag and promptly eat all of it. With salsa and beer.
We head out from Orange Walk Town, and make our way to the island paradise of Ambergris.
We check in at our literal and figurative dream house at Hotel del Rio! thatched roof, private deck, and ocean view all included :)
We spend our nights out eating delicious foods and drinking the island specialties.
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| the people who took this photo thought we might be British royals. Couldn't say why. |
We decide a golf cart tour of the island is clearly the thing to do! This became a day full of near misses, ridiculous antics, curious onlookers, and hysterical signage. When unsure of the way, repetition is always helpful (see below)
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| we are driving so fast in this photo! It was awesome that a perfect stranger would run next to us to get this high speed shot! |
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| Ok, take road road. You will go until the road road bears to the left left, and make sure you watch out for dog dog. |
On our travels, we find basically the best bar with the best gimmick I have ever seen- you get to sit in an inner tube, and the double-decker-deck-on-the-ocean bar will bucket you down refills. As one patron so deftly put it (in permanent marker on the side of the bar as so many had also done in the past) "Best bar ever- you can pee while you drink!" As far as I am aware, none of our party partook in this clear bar benefit.
Each night was as stunning sunset right outside our door...
So, last time Trev and I and our dear college friends Patty and Jenny went to Belize, I made everyone go on this expensive and sadly boring boat tour looking for manatees. We had no trouble this time around finding a manatee, on the shore nonetheless! I think this manatee had PTSD, but no biggie. We are often found riding monuments and the like (research "Worcester turtle boy" if curious about the background of this Bettie-Trevor-Kim practice).
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| There are things the manatee has seen. Terrible things. Horrible things, that would make a lesser manatee tremble in despair |
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| Trev pets a coatimundi! |
Along the beach, the Belizeans have made it their job to entertain the tourist masses and make a buck any way they can. This is the chicken drop- sounds disgusting, and it IS, but not for the reason you are thinking. The chickens are not dropped but gently released onto the board, and whoever has bought the square where the chicken first poops, you win!!! What FUN! This was bizarre, but drew the biggest crowd on the whole island.
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| We have yet to try Snuba. We did do a lot of snorkeling, which I'm guessing is like a distant cousin to snuba. |
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| rebel. |
Speaking of SNUBA! ok, so we are just snorkeling, but look at the bold and fearless underwater wildlife! We signed up for a catamaran cruise with the intention to sun on the deck, drink rum punch and in general have a beautiful day. We did, although it was punctuated by an intense onslaught of rain during our trip from one snorkel site to the tiny island of Caye Caulker. Our patience and fortitude was rewarded with copious rum punch, snacks, and a delicious lunch on the Caye. All in all, we snorkeled Hol Chan reserve, shark and ray alley, Tres Cocos, and Mexico rocks, each with a different spin on underwater wildlife. We saw nurse sharks, rays, tons of fishes, a sea turtle, a squid, a morey eel, loads of awesome coral, and of course conch.
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| Kim held this shark like a champ, and much impressed our diving guide |
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| feeding frenzy! oh yes, dive in! |
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| morey eel |
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| this turtle is missing one fin, probably from a prior epic battle |
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one of the many rays we saw on our underwater tour!
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Sadly, we had to leave this island paradise with its charming but untimely inhabitants, its cheap beer, its (mostly!) warm waters and hot sun. We returned to the real world begrudgingly but rejuvenated.
Quick trip home to Schenectady to see the family. So glad I had the opportunity to see my Gram, my Aunt Sandy and cousin Allison, and of course the 'rents! We took a drive up into the Adirondacks to dip our toes in the frigid water of early May. Its an upstate New Yorker thing- temperature is not a deal breaker.
,It was so cold my foot went entirely numb. But oh so sunny...
Here is Dads best rendition of Huck Finn. He is somehow impervious to cold water, must be from years of practice.
Alright, since Mom and I spent the weekend working out at her new gym, it was time- time for Jumping Jacks. Its crazy to think that last August it was absolutely, completely submerged in water from the flooding- the only part that was visible was the rooftops. There were no signs of water damage anywhere, and the air was full of cheers of "whale dinner!" and "SUBWAY!". 
Jealous, anyone? you should be.
Time to go back to Worcester. Just trading one run down, spunky little city for another :) 
