May 31st

Today was our first day off. Whew! We were told we could sleep in as late as we wanted, but of course, I woke up with the sunrise at 5 am, and then only forced myself to sleep in until 7. It seems like everyone else had the same problem, and by 8 we were all ready to go to Lamanai, the tour for the day. Lamanai is an archaeological site about 30 minutes away on the New River. It was pretty impressive. A small site, but the architecture was very intact, and after my week of digging and imagining walls, this gave me hope that there could still be something VERY cool inside. The first building is the temple of the serpent, a medium sized pyramid with squareish serpent like designs on the front. From here, I ended up going off on a random trail with another student, Alex, who is very shy and quiet and thus perfect company so that I don’t get lost alone, but don’t have to chitchat the whole way. The trail ended up leading us to the nearby abandoned sugar mill. It was kind of like gasworks part but smaller. I took some interesting pictures. We also found a family of howlers living in a tree right above it. They were very calm and friendly, and came down to about 10 feet above us. When we got back to the site, we followed the correct trails and found a couple other structures. The crown glory though, was the high temple. Probably nowhere near as big as the pyramids in Mexico City it felt huge in this setting. Climbing up it was steep and treacherous, but when you got to the top, you were above the dense jungle treeline and could see for miles. I kind of wished I could stay there and just meditate, it felt like you were on a cloud.

 

After the pyramids, we lunched at Lamanai Lodge, a kind of boutique hotel on the river, with amazing food. NOT being Mennonite, they did not serve us any rice or beans whatsoever, and we got spinach dip and pita bread quesadillas. It was great. The lodge grounds include a big dock on the river with sunning chairs and a palapa full of hammocks, so the rest of the day was spent relaxing in the sun. I even fell asleep, which maybe wasn’t the best since I now am a little rosy. The dock had a huge tree growing off the bank nearby, and it seemed to be the home to another howler family. They had a new baby that would follow its mom all around and pester her, pulling her hair and dive bombing her from above. It was entertaining to watch.

 

Unfortunately, the internet is once again out, prompting a revocation of internet priviledges, which means I am no longer allowed to post videos or photos. I have them though, and will be adding them later, so until then…. IMAGINE.