Saturday was a very quiet day for us. We went for a walk over along the east coast and grabbed fish sandwiches for lunch at a place by the ferry dock and watched the coming and going. Then went home and chilled before heading back out around 5pm to finalize our booking with French Angel for Sunday for our trip to the Lamanai Archeological site. A brief moment of panic when Carol realised when we got home that she didn't have her phone. A quick call to Ash at French Angel (WhatsApp is a great invention) confirmed that she had left it there, so I hustled back over to pick it up while Carol got started on cooking our dinner of chicken and rice.
Up bright and early on Sunday morning (despite the fact that some of our clocks changed because of the switch from Daylight time back home). Dressed quickly and hustled off to catch the 6:30 water taxi (ferry) to Belize City. I was half asleep I guess, because I walked right past the ferry dock and had to backtrack quite a ways, but we still got there in plenty of time. It was an hour boat ride to Belize city and the water was pretty calm.
Once we arrived in the city we were met by our driver, Chris, who took us on the hour-and-a-half trip to New River. (The British really did have a creative flair for naming places that they "discovered"!) We had a bit of a wait for our boat pilot and guide, Ignacio Jr., to arrive but he got there eventually. He had one other customer with him, who he had picked up further downriver in Orange Walk town. Our trip upriver to Lamanai was about 90 minutes and it was a very scenic and smooth trip. Saw lots of birds--egrets, osprey, cormorants and the "Jesus Christ Bird" (Northern Jacana), but no monkeys or crocodiles. Did see a family of Mennonites from the large local community out for a Sunday row on the river.
The Lamanai site has some impressive temples, but only a tiny fraction of the huge city has been excavated. Work was carried out back in the 1980's for only 12 years, on a grant from the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto. Once that funding ended, no more work has been done. The site is very well maintained, though, as a tourist attraction.
After wandering the site, we had a nice lunch of stewed chicken and rice, with fried plantains and other good stuff. Then back to the boat and downriver. But we got a bonus on the way back. Ignacio spotted a croc and swung the boat around for us to get a look and some pics.
Then on downriver to meet our driver, Chris, back by the Toll Bridge. The only negative thing about the trip is that Ignacio had said that he was rushing a bit so that Chris could get us to the 3:30 ferry. Only problem is that there is no 3:30 ferry, which we didn't know but they should have, so we go to the ferry terminal at 3:20 and had to kill over an hour waiting for the 4:30 boat. And the only cafe at the dock was closed.
Anyway, made it back to CC okay and went straight to the Sports Bar (about a 10 metre walk from the dock), had burgers (well, Carol's was jerk pork) and an entertaining evening watching the trivia contest. We didn't play (we would have won if we had) but we had fun helping out the group sitting next to us.
2025-02-10