 |
| Ignore the guy in the back! |
Our tour this morning was to depart at 9 AM, so it was an
early morning! Theresa woke me up before
7, I think. After a fast breakfast we
lined up for the tender boats. Belize
City does not have a deep enough port or big enough piers for the massive cruise
ships, so everyone anchors a few miles offshore and tenders in to the
land. But they used water taxis which
covered the five miles in about 10 minutes.
 |
| Coca Cola Brewery!! |
The bus ride to Altun Ha was about hour and there were three
guides, so it was a full talking ride there!
Belize is a British Commonwealth, and was renamed in 1973 from British
Honduras, which I find ironic since it doesn’t even border Honduras. Minimum wage here is about $1.75, and
gasoline is about $5 per gallon. They
speak English and “Creole” which is what they call their broken English, but
Spanish is required also as a second language.
Also, there is a Coca Cola facility that apparently also brews the local
beer—Belikin. So, our tour guide
referred to it as the Coca Cola Brewery!
 |
| Spiny tailed iguana, which they DO NOT eat, unlike the green iguana, which they do! (and tastes like chicken, evidently) |
 |
| All Spice Tree (All spice comes from the bark, but they also use the leaves as a tea/anesthesia). |
Altun Ha is a Mayan “city”, which housed about 10,000 in its
day, but only the prominent. The working
class lived outside the city.
Eventually, the peasants rioted and destroyed the city. The royalty had an interesting idea of
“attractive”. They liked flat foreheads
and crossed eyes. So, from infant to
adolescence, they would clamp two wooden boards on the front and back of the
girls’ heads, and tie a ball to a string to lay on her nose. I’m not sure what makes this pretty other
than that it makes her useless for daily chores, so she would have to be well
to do (in the same way that tans signified people wealthy enough to vacation
during the winter months in the warmer climates).
The ruler would build his house (or rather have it built),
and when he died, his son would fill it with limestone and build his house on
top of the last one. In this way, each
ruler established himself as “better” than his predecessor. This is how the stepped pyramids rose. They really did not do much with the house,
except sleep. The floor was stone but
they laid several layers of animal skins on it until it was soft and
comfortable. And they spent the rest of
the day outside.
 |
| Before and after excavation |
Anyway, we could climb on some of the ruins, but not after
it rains, as it gets too slippery. So,
after showing us around, the guide told us where we could climb, and told us we
had 30 minutes to be back to the bus (not nearly enough time!). Theresa and I hurried over to the big “building”
and headed up the steps. Although these
people were short (4-5 feet tall), they had some big steps! But we made it to the top, took some pix, and
headed down the back side. It was almost
time to head back to the bus, so we started that way. Then I choose to make a run for the big hill
we saw coming in. With no hand rails,
Theresa was NOT going to join me! I went
on my own, but made it up, around the top, and back down in about 3-4
minutes. We had less than 2 minutes to
get to the bus, so we hurried there, passing all the shopping on the way.
 |
| Up!! |
 |
| Conquered!! |
 |
| After three tries, someone finally took a picture of us sort of straight! |
 |
| Panoramic view from top. |
 |
| Tempting climb! |
 |
| View from the top of the second climb |
 |
| Back down was a bit more interesting...no handrails! |
After a few minutes on a nearly empty bus, I got back off to
buy a Belikin, and hurried back to the bus.
And waited. And waited. About 30 minutes after we were all told to be
back on the bus, the last straggler couple meandered back, with no hurry, no
urgency, and not even a vague awareness they were late. I guess we had time to shop after all. The bus ride was quiet, and Theresa got
enough of a signal that we posted the blog, and began writing this one.
 |
| Belize Cruise Ship parking lot! |
Back on the ship, we had a very late lunch, took a bit of a
nap, and then enjoyed some of the evening entertainment. There was a trivia quiz, then a take off of “Minute
to Win It”. I competed in one of them,
where you place a pencil on the back of your hand and then catch it with the
same hand. Then go to two pencils,
three, etc. I made it to 7 pencils
within the minute, but one of the others made it to 9, so I was second place
(again?) but this time out of four. We
wrapped up with a late dinner, and were nearly the last to leave.
No comments:
Post a Comment