My Life is in Ruins

Lamanai

(Caribbean Cruise Continued)
Two shore tours were planned to visit Mayan ruins from Belize and from Mexico. The ruins in each case were about 70 miles inland, but actually only about 15 miles apart.

It was an easy jump to Belize, only about 120 miles northwest of Roatan with the ship making slow headway during the night. But the change in weather was amazing, from clouds and rain to beautiful clear skys dotted with a few clouds in the afternoon.

The trip out of Belize was an hour's bus ride to a dock on a river that led up to the ruins. Departing the dock on the boat was so remindful of the Disneyland jungle boatride, but the guide noted that "this is all real". Up the river we went for 10 miles, with wildlife on all sides; Iguanas and all manner of birds.




The narrow river suddenly widened into a larger lake or lagoon with a low hill on one side, and the top of a Mayan temple rose out of the trees on top of the hill. This was part of the Lamanai ruins. We learned that the Mayans built up the hill by hand and also forming the lagoon, a 10ft layer every 52 years when the sun and moon calendar coincided. We docked and walked up through the jungle toward the ruins.








First we had lunch under a large palm-leaf thatched roof. These roofs last about 25 years without leaking - a lot better than the flat roof at home.



We then took a mile hike through the jungle to the ruins; the temple of masks - one of the masks is shown above.












Secondly we visited the large Mayan pyramid shown here. No, I didn't climb to the top though an old lady in the group did and came down on her rump, step by step. The 18 inch steps were meant to make the climber bow as he ascended the temple to worship his god. Finally we visited the shaman's temple of the jaguire. The tribal shaman was required to kill a jaguire and wear it's pelt cerimoniously, but he received gifts from all of the village because he was the healer.

Next Ruin - Kohunlich