Visiting Mountain Pine Ridge: All Found Vibrant

“I once read that the only thing funnier than a joke that makes everyone laugh is a snippet of endlessly humor that ensures your closest friends deadpan.” – Old Sean

Height of Comedy

Do you know why people put fences around graveyards?

Because people are dying to get in there.

You know why that graveyard over there doesn’t have a fence?

Because it’s low tier.  People just aren’t dying to get in there. 

Do you know how I know those jokes?

Because I heard them from my friend Tim every time we passed a graveyard.  And while there aren’t an exceptional number of fenced or unfenced graveyards in Belize, we did pass by the same few often enough.  One of these graveyard drive-bys was naturally during an early morning search for a breakfast place awake at the same time as we were.

Fresh Day

My travel companions Mel and Tim nudged me awake during our third day in Belize, at which point we clambered out of bed to go hunt breakfast.  Our target prey turned out to be a tiny breakfast joint that doubled as a guesthouse called Martha’s Guest House.  We collected half a bucket of orange juice apiece and returned home in a small frenzy.

Initially we had planned on staying in San Ignacio for one more night, but our hotel didn’t allow us an extension.  Our time available was further compressed by our tour guide’s arrival, which was due around 8:30 in the morning. 

Hence, once we had our food, our last hour in our hotel was a swift blur of packing up all the loose items we could fine, portioning out the things we would need for the tour and loading up our car. 

Fortunately, Tim packs so light that he’s likely buoyant in water, even with his backpack on.  Mel had already squared away most of her stuff the night before and I have so much experience speed packing, living out of a backpack is more comforting to me than owning closet space.

We completed our impromptu Tetris game and found our tour guide out front awaiting us.  We loaded ourselves into a white shuttle van (which we fortunately had all to ourselves) and promptly made a nuisance of ourselves, eating our long-awaited breakfast while barreling down the highway. 

Canopy Tours

An hour later we arrived at our location.  Hustling out of the car and loading up a small waterproof bag with the things we couldn’t afford to leave unattended in a vehicle (wallets, keys, passports, dry pants) we entered the jungle and awaited our turn for the canopy zip lines.  While loitering about, we took a short hike through the dirt trails surrounding the area, peering at a beautiful flat stream, finding a bathroom that was somewhat private but also gave a cliff-view of the jungle and watching leaf-cutter ants marching about.

When it was finally time to ascend, we were given orange helmets, a series of harnesses that pinched in all the right places and a pair of heavy leather gloved, the right glove reinforced with a thick bend of leather.  Armed for cable motion, Tim, Mel and I were grouped with a large family who went directly ahead of us. 

Zip lining is fairly easy, more because it’s difficult to effectively mess up.  The cable, pullies and gravity tend to work together well and the employees of the zip lines are pretty good at launching and receiving human bodies with minimal impact. 

That being said, while it’s hard to mess up, it’s extremely easy to look hilariously inept when not paying attention. 

Zip Lining involves keeping one hand, the braking hand, further back from the body, behind the head.  This works a bit like a rudder and prevents a person from spinning.  Pulling down with this hand results in a person slowing down.  The other hand keeps the cables and lines together and pulls the body upright and level by keeping a grip on the harness. 

Our little group of three (officially dubbed Tres Leches) acquitted ourselves well for the most part.  But other folks spun in midair, did double takes when preparing to launch, slipped about a bit on the uphill steps and jungle trails, or stopped on the cable far to early and were forced to tug themselves to the next platform safely before the next customer came rushing in from behind.

It was a fun little segment of the day, and flinging myself over a shallow river on a metal piece of string was a great part, but it was nothing compared to the second half of the tour.

Cavern Tour

The next portion of our tour was a guided float on blue tubes down a river, through the mouth of an ancient Mayan cave and out through the jungle.  The route to the headwaters was a half hour hike, crossing three rivers and eventually emerging at the base of a massive cliff.  Water drizzled down from above, tracing hanging root systems.  The portion of the river we were next to delved into caves both directions, both upstream and downstream as stalactites yawned from the ceilings. 

Now, I’m accustomed to caves.  Between tours in the US, salt mines in Poland and delving into underground rivers with Cenote entrances in Mexico, I’m no stranger to wiggling around wet, dark and batty places. 

But the sheer size of this cave was grand.  A small, flat-bottomed yacht could have navigated the waters with relative ease.   Belize has nowhere near the same number of caverns as Yucatan, but the ones it does boast are enormous.  Our guide mentioned that full day tubing and spelunking tours were available, as the cave system extended on for dozens of kilometers upstream. 

After a brief speech touching on safety and Xibalba, the Mayan underworld, we drifted down thin swells of whitewater and into the caves entrance.  The ceiling was caked in mud and bird nests as swallows flitted out into open air. 

Exploring Cave Rivers

As we drifted further into the cave, we were forced to turn our headlamps on to see.  Huge swells of stalactites and stalagmites loomed in the darkness as humped figures dripping with sugar-like frosting.  The walls were filled with deep, rustic cracks and the ceiling was pattered with different layers of strata.  Below, the currents swished, slow and inky black with a steady trickle of calcium-laden water from a limestone ceiling. 

We eventually brushed up on shore, where we took a slow, picking hike along trecherous ground.  Pockets of shredded sand, puddles of water and graceless mounds of sharp stone marked our paths. 

Above, bats flickered about.  Occasionally, we’d see odd, perfectly round holes drilled into the ceilings.  These were bat-holes, where a single bat would roost for years until bequeathing the position to another.  The bat’s body heat, ammonia in its guano and fluttering wings created reverse dig-sites, gradually rising into the ceiling.  Along the ground skittered night-crawlers, long limbed bugs with harmless, probing antenna. 

We eventually made it to a secondary entrance where the limestone had tumbled inward in a bygone era, letting in lights and sharp greenery.  A single, harrowing face was carved into the bottom of a stalagmite here.  Further on, we were treated to a obscure ledge, past a wall of stones rendered nearly white with deposited minerals.  Upon this ledge were incredible shards of Mayan pottery, ancient well before my grandfather’s time, pressed into tight little groups.

Now, in university I had been allowed to study some artifacts, but I’ve never touched a piece of history that old with my bare hands before, as a tiny shard was passed around our group.  It was a thrill.  Embedded in the clay were small, perfectly rendered images and the largest pieces of pottery were beautiful circles, somehow still intact.  Shells also sat amidst the ruins, glinting brightly in the glare of our headlamps. 

It was at this point we were sent to a cliff, where we jumped off the ledge back into the river, swam through a smaller cavern and eventually made it back to where our blue floating tubes lay resting on the shoreline within the caverns.

River Jungle

Everything about the trip was surreal.  We emerged about fifteen minutes later back in sunlight, now drifting calmly down the wide, lazy river.  Since I could see the bottom and I was less concerned about hitting something unfortunate in a cavern I couldn’t navigate, I wiggled free of my tube and swam alongside my group for the duration.  It turned out to be a nice, although somewhat shortsighted decision, as I got snagged by the current a few times on my offshoot adventure and pulled along round, small stones like a violent massage bed or whacked into low branches where the water moved quickly. 

Overall, very entertaining.

Following this, we changed into semi-dry clothes, joined our guide for lunch and quickly sorted ourselves out for the ride back to San Ignacio.  Unable to secure lodgings in the city, we decided to try our luck further to the East, which would speed up our journey back to the coast considerably faster. 

Departing San Ignacio

Tim took the wheel and I took the Google Maps.  We spent some time around the San Ignacio Market, but it was closing up when we arrived (around 6 PM) so we didn’t spend long there. 

Back on the road, we swiftly reached Belmopan where out next hotel awaited.  It was a substantial upgrade, with desk spaces, nice beds, a heated shower and a functioning kitchen.  We didn’t really use the latter, since all of us were ready to try our luck eating out once more.

Dinner was at Corker’s Restaurant and Wine Bar, where we ordered a giant pineapple and meat plate for the table.  I may have indulged beyond the recommended amount, since I had some meat sweats immediately afterwards. We spent the rest of the night getting situated for the next morning (heading to the water taxi in the hopes of visiting Ambergris Caye) and watching the first hour of The Princess Bride.

Travel Chores

The following morning was our first designated “sleep in” morning.  Each evening of our vacation in Belize resulted in a lower and lower dip in energy, so we had hoped to rally a bit here.  We had simply embarked on so many activities in such a short amount of time, it was probably a minor miracle nobody had just fallen asleep mid-task yet.

However, this didn’t really stick.  Everyone still woke up fairly early and we hustled out the door in search for breakfast.  We returned to Corker’s to pick up something left behind and selected an early-morning food truck that served Tamales for our late-breakfast meal.  Thunder rumbled ominously and the clouds grew thick and heavy above, but no rain fell.  Whatever luck was marching beside us continued to hold it’s vigil. 

The rest of our morning was a quiet affair.  To return to the USA, both Tim and Mel needed to get negative COVID tests at the medical center next to our hotel and we napped while the results were processed.  Tim employed his superpower of being able to doze anywhere while Mel and I failed miserably at pecked at our phones for a while.

An Unexpected Zoo

Back on the road, we had one last stop before making it back to Belize City.  The Belize Zoo is an iconic educational institution in Belize, located to the west of Belize city and stocked with local wildlife rescue animals.  Entrance is $15 USD per person and the proceeds go into the zoo’s rescue and rehabilitation programs.

Now, I’m a bit apprehensive about zoos.  I’ve seen some truly inhumane ones during my time in Asia and I know how poorly they can go.  There are some good ones out there as well, however.  My favorites in the world are the Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska and the famous San Diego Zoo in California.  They all have free range animal exhibits and spotting animals is more a feature of luck than a small, funneled cage. 

But the Belize Zoo did it.  I’d place them firmly in number three of favorite zoos I appreciate. 

The entrance area has a large number of fossils, informative plaques and directions.  Further inside come the animals, all of which are local to Belize.  Since the animals are accustomed to Belize’s singular environment, there isn’t much artificial environmental-construction.  Instead, patches of the jungle are thwacked down in thin lines so fences can be put up and animals end up in a exact copy of their natural habitat.  Dense forest jungles make up the zoo and the trails going through are pebble-studded concrete walkways that curl between trees, making it feel like a real hike.

Natives of Belize

Belize has an incredible pantheon of animals to display.  We spotted monkeys that showed off for us as we walked by, deer stalking past bowls of bright vegetables, large brown pelicans preening, a showboat of a toucan flashing either side of it’s colorful beak, humble turtles and crocodiles sifting along ponds, great harpy eagles with wicked talons in mesh cages, a pacing ocelot that purred audibly and blinked slowly at humans, gorgeous, bright orange king vultures, a cheerful puma (called a red tiger locally) that padded through the underbrush and odd, thick-necked cranes stilt-walking their way through shallow waters. 

The prize of the park, however, are the tapirs.  These large, long-nosed mammals are Belize’s national animal, and they have free range in wide cages.  One named Fuego joined us at the edge, snorting at flowers that had fallen just out of his reach until we picked them up so he could snuffle them down.  Many of the animals here are rescues and seem perfectly happy to see humans.  There was a one-eyed bush dog, another tapir that survived a forest fire, an owl with an injured wing and a macaw with a repaired beak. 

Furthermore, the zoo is filled with large planks of black wood with white writing on them.  While much of this information is educational or pleas on how to properly treat animals, but there are also education poems and lovely quotes scattered about.  They’re quirky and fun to read.

For example, in front of a crocodile’s exhibit, it read;

“Guess they forgot to tell ‘um we crocs have a cerebellum.  That’s the part of the brain where emotions do reign.  We crocs feel and have fears and cry real crocodile tears so treat us kind in the wild and in the zoo!  Cause just like yourself, Belize is our home too.”

There was also a nice Mahatma Gandhi quote between two palm fronds.

“The  greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Ferried Away

At this point, our time was nearly up.  We were due back in Belize City to drop off our car rental by 2 PM.  By the same token, our last boat leaving town to Ambergris Caye was gone at 4 PM.  So we said our goodbyes to the various critters and began the next portion of our drive.

When we finally dropped off the rental at Crystal Auto Rental we quickly cleaned out the vehicle while an old timer offered to drive us to the ferry station to catch our boat, instead of having us pay for a taxi.  We turned over the car keys to him and trundled through the streets, eventually reaching the port.  Tim grabbed us our tickets and we settled in for a swift lunch before it was time to go.

We’ll be heading to Ambergris Caye soon, landing in San Pedro.  Even though this day isn’t over, I believe it wise to stop here, since this is our last event on the Belize mainland.

So until we cast off,

Best regards and excellent trails,

Old Sean

Written August 12th, 2021

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