Back in Belize - March 29, 2019

This would be Mrs. Gym's first time in Belize. Gym was fortunate to have been to Belize a couple of times before. His first trip was a company financed, team-building gig, a geological field trip to study reefs in about 2000. A couple of years later, Gym visited again on a boy's fishing trip.

Having the second largest barrier reef in the world makes Belize both a great spot for viewing reefs and of course a premium fishing venue. At San Pedro in the north of the country,  the barrier reef is within a few hundred meters of the beach. In the south end, off the Placentia Peninsula, the reef is many kilometers offshore. In between, the barrier reef and the mainland shore there are 100s of cays and numerous patch reefs surrounding those cays. The Marina docked at Harbour Caye,  a pretty swank new cruise ship terminal, early in the morning of March 29, 2019.

Both of our intrepid travelers were scheduled to see some more Mayan ruins and a spice farm. They would transfer to a smaller boat, to get from Harvest Caye to the mainland. This turned out to be a  laboriously slow boat ride because they had to avoid hitting manatees the whole way. When they finally got there, they boarded a coach and met their guide, Nathaniel. As they drove south down the highway towards Punta Gorda, they learned that Nate was an Indigenous Belizean and his home was right next to the ruins. Incidentally, the location of these ruins was not all that far from Tikal, as the crow flies. Northern Guatemala is just west of Belize and we probably flew over the Belizean ruins when we went to Tikal. The point is that the Mayan civilization was spread out all over this part of Central America. We would see a third site in Mexico the next day, again in close proximity to the first two sites.

The Mayan ruins at Nim Li Punit were not as spectacular as Tikal but there was a very well preserved  Mayan Ball Court where ancient Mayans played a form of handball with a 9-pound solid rubber ball. Sometimes these contests ended in the loser donating penile blood for an offering to the Gods. Yikes! The site also had a nice interpretive centre that dealt with Stelas. Stelas are the headstone's or monuments to the Mayan rulers. On the Stela, the ruler's life achievements were carved and these monuments were placed outside their burial places. There are several beautifully restored examples of Stelas in the interpretive centre.

The Belize Spice Farm and Botanical Garden was 6 minutes down the road from the Nim Li Punit archeological site. It was started by the Mathews family in 1990. The Mathews wanted to produce the kinds of fruit, spices and trees that are grown in Kerala, India. Today, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, vanilla and nutmeg are all grown there, as well as various citrus and exotic fruits. In addition, the farm is adorned with teak, mahogany, sandalwood, banyan trees and many other ornamental trees and plants. Gym held off the urge to pick up a pound of cardamom at the farm's store.

After touring the farm, the coach took our tired adventurers back near to the place where they had boarded it earlier in the day. However, they were strategically left at the entrance to a "mall maze" that had them pass by every merchant, restaurant and bar before they could re-board the boat. With his dear wife's help, Gym found the pier, without spending a dollar.

Playa Maya, Mexico was the next stop, stay tuned!

Arriving at the swank new cruise ship terminal at Harbor Caye

After boarding a smaller boat we proceeded to the mainland.
avoiding all manatees

After an hour bus ride we reached the Nim Li Punit site, This is the
interpretive centre.

Here is a Stela. Some ruler guy's exploits are carved
into the stone.

These Mayans had no steel and they carved the limestone
blocks with obsidian stone.

Another fine example of a stela in the interpretive centre.

The remains of the ruler's palace

A well-preserved Mayan ball court.

Our guide standing over burial chambers.

Cinnamon Hall is the merchandise shop and restaurant at the Belize
Spice Farm and Botanical Garden.

A typical view on the farm.

Did you know that the seeds from a water lily are edible?

This is Nutmeg!

Flowers everywhere!

A farm worker having just harvested Vanilla.

Another rich and colorful bit of scenery at the farm.

On the way back to this ship we passed this private island
that you can rent for $12k US/ wk.
It has 4 king ensures, a pool, a chef, a boat, a boat captain,
maids and gardeners all included in the price.

Realizing Roatan, Honduras

Roatan, Honduras is 65 kilometers off the mainland coast of Honduras. It is part of Honduras but as opposed to the mainland which is Spanish-speaking, everyone on Roatan has English as a first language. English-speaking ex-pats are everywhere on the island as it is a one-time British possession and today, a place that many  British, American and Canadian citizens have found a tropical home or second home. The economy of the island is sustained by the tourist industry and a big part of that is the cruise ship traffic that stops at this port. When we anchored, there were two other cruise ships already there, one of which was the Riviera, the Marina's identical twin sister. Roatan wisely invested in a very nice cruise ship terminal with room to dock one ship. A big Norwegian ship had the dock on that day.  The Marina and Riviera were anchored and had to tender their passengers into the terminal. The terminal includes a fancy shopping mall with bars, restaurants and stores of all descriptions.

Gym made it to the shopping mall but for the first time ever, he missed a scheduled shore excursion. He only had enough energy to pick up some pepto bismol and ibuprofen at the drug store and return to the Marina. Its too bad because Gym had planned on some snorkeling and wanted to check the island to see if there was any nice resorts. We will have to come back to get a better look at the island. Maybe its a perfect beach getaway.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gym had a date with a dolphin. She was initially hesitant about the Dolphin outing, as she had heard rumors that these ones were the "big kind of dolphins". And let's face it Dolphins do have teeth, right?! But when she got back to the boat with the report for her husband she declared the outing to be a most excellent adventure (the pictures tell the whole story). Mrs. Gym also was able to snap a few pics of some posh ex-pat cribs on her way to her date.

That night the Marina would pull up its anchor and leave Roatan with the next stop being the small country of Belize.

MS Riviera right beside us.

A bar at the Cruise Ship Terminal

The drug store was just down the way.

A beautiful spring-time scene.

The walkway to the dolphin date.

This is where the date went down.

A nice ex-pat crib. 

Another Ex-pat home

And another

Entertainment on the dock as passengers go back to their ships

And finally, we introduce you to the date, Maury!

It got fresh!

Taking in Tikal, Guatemala

Gym felt a little adventurous and somewhat flush when he picked the Guatemalan shore excursion.  You could choose a free self-guided tour of Santo Tomas, or alternatively, several other moderately priced day-trips or at the other end of the scale, you could pay big dollars to get off the ship, travel 3.5 hours by various and expensive means and see some venue of uncertain quality. And remember,  Gym's dear wife has just gotten used to ship travel, is a white-knuckle flier and not a great bus person, especially on Central America's roads. So why did Gym chose this expensive, exhausting and wife-torturing excursion? No one knows the answer but the destination was worth it, even Mrs. Gym agrees.

This blog is always hard on Mrs. Gym, reminding the reader of her enduring motion sickness. To be honest to our readers, for the first time in 10 years of traveling around the world, Mrs. Gym was in comparatively better traveling shape than her husband. Gym had visited the ship's doctor about a delicate GI issue just prior to leaving for this day's tour. The diagnosis was not grave but it did require that some thickening agents be employed to make it a little more comfortable for our hero. Unfortunately, this so called medical expert seemingly over-prescribed for the symptoms. Some super-duper white pills instantly altered Gym's normally iron constitution and frankly, at time of writing, he is still trying to get over their evil effects, a week later. Notwithstanding, our adventurers successfully completed this tour and have declared it the best venue visited on this trip.

The Tikal Mayan ruins were not easy to get to from the ship. From the Marina, the intrepid couple had to drive  to the Porto Barrios Airport, through the middle of the crowded city. Then, they jumped on a chartered TAG Saab turbo-prop, of uncertain age and fitness, to fly about 170 miles north to the city of Flores, Guatemala, some 45 minutes away. Once in Flores, they had to endure another 90-minute bus ride through the countryside on windy Central American roads to get to gates of Tikal National Park. To that point, they had traveled three and a half hours from the ship, so they had less than 2 hours to get a quick tour of the ruins and still have time to make the return trip and to make the ship's departure time. Two days in a row Gym and his lovely wife were among the last to re-board the ship later that day.

The first thing Gym did at this enormous Mayan site was to follow his wife up to the top of Temple No. 4. At the top, a few minutes behind his wife, Gym looked out on one of the most spectacular sites he'd ever seen. From the top of Temple No. 4 you can see the the ruins of Temples Not. 1 and 2 on the left and the rulers palace on the right. Each of these massive structures rises above the canopy of the Guatemalan jungle and the vista is inspiring. Gym immediately had a sense of deja vu. He had seen this all before. It wasn't because Gym had re-incarnated from a past Mayan life, it was because it seems that this view had inspired someone else. It turns out that the view from top of Temple No. 4 was used by George Lucas in Star Wars IV. In that scene Tikal is a rebel stronghold and a starship blasts off from somewhere between Temples 1 and 2.

Star Wars is not why Tikal is cool. It is an awe-inspiring mega-ruin that has enough preserved structures that the visitor really feels a sense of how it was to be a Mayan living in Tikal. Our guide on the day, explained that even though many fine structures had been unearthed, there were thousands still hidden by the jungle. If you do a little research you find out that geographical scientists have used LIDAR technology to map out ruins under the jungle in 1000s of acres of the park. There are still jobs for lots of archeologists.

Sadly, the Mayans died out because of deforestation. They used up all the fuel they needed to sustain their society and their geologists hadn't discovered an economic source of hydrocarbons to replace the wood. Sad, very sad!

Stay tuned, this isn't the end of the Mayan ruins explored on this trip.

At the airport in Porto Barrios

The Linda approaching the TAG charter turbo-prop

The marathon runner stooping for a pic before
ascending about 10 flights to the top of Temple 4

At the top of Temple 4

The familiar site that both Gym and George Lucas thought was pretty cool

Starting the descent off Temple 4

The jungle has reclaimed the city but is demise was attributed to a shortage
of wood and the destruction of the jungle around the city which may have exacerbated
drought and made farms less productive.

The temples were aligned such that winter and summer solstices
could be captured by the placement of the buildings and the extreme positions of the sun
on those particularly significant times of year.

Today the ruins are inhabited by two specifies of monkeys.

This is the plaza between Temple No1 and Temple No. 2

Temple No. 1 facing west and the setting sun actually appears on one of the
denominations of the Guatemalan Currency

The upper class Mayans lived on the south side of the Great Plaza,
looking north 

Temple 2 not as tall as Temple 1 faces east. 

A rather tame Coatimundi. Watch these critters, if they put
their heads between heir front two paws they are
submissive - otherwise leave them alone.

After Tikal lunch was had in this nice hotel.

The lunch was served overlooking this pristine lake.

Arriving back at Porto Barrios Airport and just about missing the ship...again!