Mayan Trek: This time we hit the high note...

Our day begins early as Mr Bailey is waiting for us downstairs on the agreed upon time of 6:30 am. We have a long day ahead of us as we plan to visit the Mayan site of Laminai. The weather predicts thunderstorms so we pack our rain jackets. It is just barely morning, the city just beginning to wake up, tour buses parked like soldiers awaiting the arrival of disembarking cruise ship passengers going on tours for the day. We feel rain in the air as the morning has a cool crisp feel with overcast clouds. We say our hellos and make a bee line to the cafe around for some coffee. We will need it. The drive to Laminai takes ninety minutes, then w board a boat for another ninety minutes that takes us down a river through the jungles of Belize in order to reach our destination.

The drive is on better roads this morning or just seems so. We reach the boat launch early. The owner is waiting on other passengers. Mr. Bailey takes us up the road a bit to the town of Orangewalk. The run down, unattractive town is bustling with the activity of setting up for market day. The only unusual attraction was two completely out of place blond college age women walking on the street. My initial reaction is what the heck are they doing here? I thought well maybe this town is a Mecca for young kids and there is more to it than meets the immediately eye. I was to find our my initial reaction was correct, the town sucked. I was to find out because the women ended up on the same boat tour to Lamani and we had a chance to chat. They are sisters from Tennessee living and working as waitresses in San Juan. They spoke about there two year plan to see th world after college and how after six months they wanted to add more time to the plan. I was amused as they spoke about their styles of traveling. One sister needed and enjoyed the planning, the other lime to thrown caution to the wind and just go.

Everyone now arrived as food was loaded along with eight passengers into the boat.
The girls, Bill and me, two guys from Chicago, and couple from Maryland. I though about my cousin Joe and his wife Paula from Maryland who are currently at John's Hopkins caring for their prematurely born granddaughter. They are wonderful people and have always been there for me. The baby is tiny and doing much better. My thoughts and what limited religion exist in me my prayers as well.

The captain and tour guide deftly guided the single engine boat down the river. I felt like we were channeling Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim as we headed down the jungle river to our destination. He made a number of interesting stops along the way narrating as we stopped to watch the spider monkeys. They came out of the dense trees to come relatively close to the boat knowing they would be feed by the captain.
it was cute to see them peel bananas and gobble them up. After which, we passed a believe it or not site of an Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation built by a Texan. We moved further down the densely foliage jungle river stopping o see various plants n tress some use for medicinal purposes. The breeze on the water was wonderful and while not sunny, the sun did peek its head out from time to time. The captain pointed our attention to these birds called Jesus Christ Birds because they walk on water. Well actually they walk on the Lilly pads that float on top of the water. They were so funny to see them walk and run on water. He further regaled us with tales of Mayan myths including taking us to see the Mayan version of the forbidden fruit tree from the bible. We finally came upon an open mouth part of the river with a dock in sight where a few other tour boats were tired up. We disembarked made our way to some picnic tables and had a surprisingly, delicious lunch before we set out on the tour. The fascinating river excursion tour was as interesting as the site.

The server is running like shit. I will post the blog and photos will have to follow.