After some breakfast, highlighted by a glass of watermelon pulp, we head to Lamanai ruins with Richard, Peter and Martha (from Philadelphia), and Max and Michelle (from London, England). Lamanai ("Submerged crocodile") is another Mayan ruin, only accessable by boat. It's a bit rainy in the morning, so we take a poncho and a rainjacket, and head up the Old Highway to the landing, where we hop into a flat-bottom boat. We took a brief detour to feed a pair of spider monkeys. They came right into the boat to grab pieces of banana. On our way downriver to the site, we spied all sorts of birds, from hawks, spoonbills, and harriers, to a pair of mighty Jabiru Storks. Richard even pointed out some little, brown fisher bats that will snatch a fish from the river and bring it up about twenty feet above the surface of the water, drop the fish and catch it in their mouths before it hits the water. The clouds broke by the time we reached Lamanai. Once off the boat, we cache our lunch in the picnic area and head to the museum, where artifacts date back to 800 BC. Flint, used for ceremonial purposes, are displayed. These pieces come in all sorts of shapes - a cross, persons, and crescents that illustrate the sun/the moon/and a solar eclipse. There's one particular vessel that has what appears to be two screw heads, which are merely decorative markings. Outside, we are privy to a well-preserved Stela that apparantly cracked at the base and toppled, face-down, on three Mayans. This scared the others so much that they abandoned the temple and left the three to be found by archaelogists centuries later. The main temple dates back to around 1200 AD and was built in one shot, to 112 feet. Over 1,200 obsidian scalpels were found here. Through the woods is the temple of Chak, the Rain God. This is also called the 'Mask Temple'. Lunch was a nice pasta salad with barbecued chicken. After lunch, we got some souveniers and headed back. About five minutes into the return boat ride, I realized that my jacket was missing, so we turned around and I backtracked, jogging, to find it at the steps of the Mask Temple. A quick jog back to the dock, and we were really on our way. Saw a small crocodile sunning on a log during the boat ride. Once back in the van, we took a quick detour to the town of Orange Walk to shop. Then at Maruba, Noga and I sign up for another treatment - (continued)
June 28, 2000
Sorry.
I don't have pictures from this trip.
But, you can check out all of the honeymoon pictures here
If you're bored, test your love compatability here: