Continued....

http://www.belize-vacation.com/belize/altunha.htm

I am up fresh as a daisy 5 am. It was supposed to be 6 but I set the alarm on my phone which is in NYC time. I woke Bill up as well. He got ready and I told him my mistake. He said "ok, I am going to go back to sleep wake me in an hour." In a flash, he fell back to sleep.
So where was I? Yes, Belize City is a shit hole of a city. Someone like the Benjamin Moore Co. should donate a couple of thousand gallons of paint to Belize. The houses which most of them shacks look atrocious and barely standing up.

After our scenic tour of the city, we headed out on the open road to Altun Ha. The open road if you can call it that is a two lane roadway littered with potholes, gravel, and speed bumps. You see there are no lights to make you stop but there are plenty of speed bumps where you have to slow down and come to a stop. Envision this, you are finally cruising on a good stretch of road when all of a sudden the site of a speed bump awaits you. You practically stop your car to go over the bump then drive onward. It took what seemed like the length of a bible to drive and finally reach the ruins. We made a pit stop for water and Bill needed to buy a toothbrush. I really would like to say the countryside was beautiful but it was not and I cannot in good conscience mislead my devoted followers. I won't go into a description, as it would be like kicking a dead man when he was down.

We reach the Mayan site of Altun Ha. After that long and tedious drive, all I could think of was how did they get here? Why would you want to settle here? And who the f*** would come out here to conquer you, and what would they do with you when they did? As you can tell, my mind was racing with intellectual curiosity as I wondered if there was a bar close to the ruins.

Altun Ha dating back from 200 BC Has four temples overlooking a grass field. The largest Plaza B is dominated by the sites largest temple, The Temple of Masonry Altar, which rises 60 feet above the plaza and was the last in a sequence of buildings raised on this spot. This temple was probably the main focus of religious ceremonies, with a single stairway running up the front to an altar at the top.

Several priestly tombs have been uncovered within the main structure, however most of them had already been desecrated, possibly during political turmoil that preceded the abandonment of the site. We all climb to the top of the temple. What for? Because we could and it was there. It is not like the view from 60 feet up was phenomenal. It is time to post some photos and continue the day a bit later.
Time to wake our Bill.

Mr. Bailey, our Bill and the kid tour guide

A small Temple

The Biggie.

Me, next to a bizarre tree. It remind me of something out of a H.P. Lovecraft story.

The view from the top of the Temple