Billy Barquedier Waterfall, Stann Creek District, Belize
The famous Hummingbird
Highway
Today we will drive the famous
and what they say it is the most scenic drive in Belize: and at the moment they
do a lot of improvements – starting out with the circle construction we later
went through a lot more construction sites: what amazed us at one time was the
really red earth you could soo where they dug out the road.
What we also liked a lot was the
view on the mountains as well we drove the whole day through a lot of citrus /
orange orchards (our guide the other day said that they make a lot of
concentrate here and sell it to Florida). What also made the drive really
interesting were the mountains we drove through. It was a super fun drive.
As we drove south we also had a
lot of clouds... maybe that is good as long as we are not on the beach and go
hiking in the forest. And every time there is a small village you have the
speed bumps – and as per Gine sometimes also when there is a scenic view there
is one: maybe they know that the wives want to enjoy the view. And again near the streetbumps
when you have to go slow: they sell you everything – but Paul was not so eager
to eat some corn.
Billy Barquedier NP
very easy to find: right on the
Highway with a tiny sign and a tiny wooden hut and green parking (that means we
are the only car on the grass). And when writing our name in the book we were
also the only people so far today. The guy was super nice and even gave us
hiking poles and told us to put on mosquito spray before going not that they
bite us when we take a picture., which we later discovered was super. So up a
narrow path and then there you ahve 2 ways: up the hill or the waterfalls – but
we came for the falls – it was a nice walk through the forest and every once in
a while there was a little bench. We admired those huge Palm trees we saw along
the way and then it got interesting: down to the river and over the river on
rocks (they even put a rope there) and then we continued on along the river
over rocks and roots until we came to the pool with the waterfall.
Gine was brave and went in the
water swimming to the falls – as where Paul enjoyed them from the bench. By the
way the water was quite fresh and cold!! Even the sun came out and sparkled right on
the waterfall nowhere else – it was super beautiful.
Mayflower Bocawina NP
- this was the first Forest Reserve in Belize
- because they found so many Mayflower trees here, they called it the Mayflower Bocawina (we are here in the wrong season to see the beautiful pink and red flowers)
with a lot of clouds in the sky
we continue on and that is when we also see a lot of pine trees along the road.
And then comes the turn off to the Mayflower Bocawina: a 6 km stretch of red
gravel road, as where Paul most of the times speed – now he drives super slow –
that gives Gine time to admire the orange orchards. And here we are not alone
there are 2 cars in the parking lot! But no-one in the office – so we continue
on and find the ranger: who explained us what we all can do and we decide to go
to the Antelope falls – if you come here you come to hike in the jungle and to
visit waterfalls. Soon after we cross the little bridge we come to the
Maintzunun Temple: which was once a Mayan temple, today it is a huge round
mound and actually when you look closely there are a few areas where you can
see the stones where they built it. One of the most fascinating things on this
walk were the huge palm trees: it is something we nearly can’t go over how huge
those leaves are and when we asked the ranger he told us it is
the Cohune
Palm:
- all the leaves are started to grow from the ground – by the way we saw a very young 5 year old plant close to the visitor info
- the grow like Mini coconuts: you can bang them open with a stone and inside you find coconut flesh – in each season a palm produces 600 – 800 nuts
- also the little fruits can be used for coal because they are hard and burn for long
- the leaves are used to built roofs (and yes we saw them using the leaves at the Belize zoo where they covered a roof)
- they also make cohune oil out of it (they don’t do it commercially because it is to difficult to make) – the only way to do it is the old fashion mayan way
- the base of some of the trees can be a half meter across from the immense fronds – some say that they have the largest leaves in the world: between 10 – 20 m long and often a couple meters wide
- the palm only grows on very fertile soil: they actually make their own soil: they shed the leaves and enrich the soil around the palm
On the way there it went mostly
uphill (that is when we discovered instead of a full bottle of water we brought
a half one!!). But then on the way back it will only go downhill!! And then we
heard some noise and we saw some Howler Monkeys. We arrived at the bottom of
the Antelope Falls: they are super huge they go 1000 ft down – I don’t
even think that we saw all the way to the top. Once we saw the way going on up
to the top we decided to skip this part, because it was climbing up the huge rocks, we decided to much of a risk for Paul’s hip. We had a lot
of fun enjoying climbing over the huge boulders (which we learned are granite)
at the bottom.
And then we discovered ant
paths: after you saw one you see them everywhere: the famous leaf cutter
ants carrying cut up pieces of leaves over stones: It is so amazing on how
those little ants carry:
- they can carry 20 timer their own body weight (guess we have to practise still quite a bit!!)
- they are endemic to Central and South America
- they cut and process fresh vegetation: leaves, flowers and grasses to serve as the nutritional substrate for their fungal cultures
- by the way they can even cut through human skin
- next to humans they have the largest and most complex animal society on Earth
- winged females and males leave their nests – the female mates with multiple males to collect 300 Mill sperms she needs to start a colony. Once on the ground she looses her wings and looks for a suitable ground to start her colony and fungus garden (only 2.5 % of all females are successful).
Back at the visitor center we
saw again a huge mound with trees on it: and yes we are already experts and
right away see that there is a Mayan temple underneath – this are the
Mayflower ruins. Walking around you come to the plaza and you can see several
mounds on the side – Paul asked if we brought a spoon he would like to start
digging.
- There are 3 Maya sites in the park and we saw two!!
- the structures are from around 900 AD
And by now the blue sky comes
out: time for the beach!!
Did I mention: that there are a
lot of mosquitos here!! so Gine sprayed herself 3 times – even Paul put some
spray on his feet and we are both sure that we have hundreds of mosquito bites
– Good thing the salt water of the ocean will help.
Paul’s fun
on the way back we discovered a
site road with a bridge: so we decided to check it out and here you can not
only drive over the super funky bridge but also through the river: Paul definitely
needed some fun which was not related to hiking or ruins... and so he got his
fun part for the day
2025-05-22