Belize Honeymoon (Part2)

 

 

A Week on Ambergris Caye

 

We had made a 6-night reservation at the Caribbean Villas in October.  We took what was available which was a suite with kitchen and a conventional room.   M&M, being on their honeymoon opted for the suite but Morten advised us to come down at any time to cook dinner if we were so inclined.  Gayle, the consummate chef, somehow managed to keep us supplied with restaurant reservations throughout our stay

 

Caribbean Villas

 

In terms of amenities, the Caribbean Villas were somewhere between the very upscale resorts and some rather plain hotels in town.  It sported its own bird sanctuary with observing tower and unlike many of the other resorts with manicured gardens had preserved the dense jungle-like vegetation that must have covered the entire Caye in earlier times.  The resort itself consisted of two 2-story building with about 6 rooms each. 

 

Our 2nd story room faced the beach which was about 100 yards away through a grove of palm trees.  The beaches are beautiful white sand although the water just off shore is very shallow and somewhat muddy.  A much more pleasant way of swimming was to walk to the end of the hotel pier, perhaps 2-300 feet long, and swim off the end in deeper water.  The pier was also used as an embarkation point for the many fishing and snorkeling boats that catered to the tourists.  The water was warm and clear.  About a half mile off shore we could see the waves breaking on the reef, reputed to be the 2nd longest in the world after the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia.

 

The beach in front of our hotel

 

From our second floor balcony, we had a beautiful view of the ocean and faced easterly and the rising sun.  We had beautiful weather while in San Pedro.  It was warm but not so hot that we never thought to turn on the air conditioning in our room.  I can’t recall that it ever rained during our stay although a few times I noticed that there were quite a lot of cloud cover (as on our arrival).

 

 

A Belize sunrise

 

The Golf Cart

 

It turned out that the principal means of transportation in San Pedro, for the tourists at least, is the gold cart.  So we rented one for the week for about $50 per day.  It really wasn’t necessary and more walking would have probably allowed us to work off the good food we ate in abundance.  On the other hand, we could get from one place to another faster with the Gold cart.  We all took turns driving, however my tenure as driver was much maligned by the others because I seemed to hit all the speed bumps at the top speed of 20 miles per hour.

 

Our Trusty Gold Cart

 

San Pedro Town

 

San Pedro is a nice tidy tourist-oriented town with three north-south main streets lined with colorful shops, restaurants, hotels and the businesses catering to gringos.  It’s really quite small, perhaps a half mile from the southern where our hotel was to the northern end which is separated from the rest of the Caye by an inlet to the interior bay.

 

 

The Main Street in San Pedro

 

Excellent Dining

 

The restaurants in San Pedro were excellent.  They came in all shapes and sizes and cuisines.  We had excellent food throughout our stay and never had a bad meal except for one marginal affair which I will describe later..  It was not inexpensive, however, and prices seemed to be comparable to good restaurants in Los Angeles, especially if one ordered good wine and the tasty appetizers.  Did I mention that Monika and Morten are wine connoisseurs?  Unlike Mexico where tequila is king, rum is the native drink in Belize.  And the local beer is quite nice and apparently a monopoly since we saw no other brands but the ubiquitous Belikin.  Somehow, a case of the stuff was delivered to our room and about half of that amount made it back to Salinas where it serves as an occasional; reminder of our vacation.

 

We never went hungry

 

The Moonlight Cruise

 

Our vacation included both the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  Shortly after our arrival we say an advertisement for a Christmas Eve moonlight cruise including a gourmet dinner and dancing in a 90 foot catamaran named the Calypso.  Although not cheap, the occasion seemed to warrant special treatment and the prospect of a lobster dinner seemed quite appealing.  So we signed up.

 

Christmas Eve on the Dinner Cruise

 

And we had a lovely time.  The moon was full.  The ship was stable and well-captained,  The weather was warm and tropical.    But the food was laughable and the bartender was a Zonker look-alike who knew less about mixing drinks than Mother Theresa.  Our gourmet dinner was served on paper plates and emerged course by course from Styrofoam coolers in increasingly lukewarm condition.  To avoid the crush at the bar, we ordered a few bottles of wind and made our own party.  A memorable event was the first sighting of me on the dance floor in the current millennium.

 

Dancing ?    The feet belong to our intrepid photographer, Morten

 

 

Snorkeling on The Reef

 

Probably the Belize high point for Gayle and I was our day spent snorkeling on the reef.  The fish were in amazing profusion as the following photograph shows.  Morten took the following picture with his underwater camera.

 

Jonathan and fish, snorkeling on the reef

Gayle is not a strong swimmer and had immediate difficulty getting the hang of her snorkel.  The guide, who must be trained to watch for such things, gave her a life preserver ring and literally towed her around the reef for the better part of an hour while he pointed out the sights.  He was working hard (and received a good tip for his troubles) The water was never more than 20 feet deep and the plant life fish life, and coral formations were amazing.

 

 

The Blue Hole

 

On Christmas day Monika and Morton went scuba diving to one of the premier spots in the world, the Blue Hole.  It is a submarine cave whose roof has partially collapsed forming a dark circular opening in the otherwise relatively shallow ocean bottom.  I can’t remember how deep the hole goes, but according to M&M it is far lower than the limits for recreational diving.  Their main dive was down into the gloomy depths of the hole to the 120 foot level where they are often under the overhang.  Dangerous stuff.

 

120 feet down in the Blue Hole

 

 

A Northward Adventure

 

One afternoon early in our San Pedro stay, we decided to explore the north reaches of the Caye..  This involved a 3-hour trek north until the road petered out passing by many elegant looking vacation homes and a few, not so elegant ones.  The most interesting part of the trip was a high-tech man-powered ferry across the inlet north of San Pedro town.  This 25 foot long barge-like boat attached to a rope tethered to the opposite shores of this 150-foot wide body of water.  To move the ferry from one shore to another, the ferry “captain”, a very husky looking young man, simply pulled on the rope thereby powering the ferry and all its occupants and vehicles to the opposite shore.  The cost for the four of us plus our golf cart was $4.00 Belize or $2.00 US.

 

Man-powered ferry north of San Pedro

 

Total Relaxation

 

If we had to summarize Belize and Ambergris Caye, it would be a time of unhurried relaxation, several books read, wonderful weather, friendly people, excellent food, and (everything considered) moderate prices.

 

The Flight to Guatemala

 

On Monday. December 27th, we prepared to leave San Pedro for our next destination, Santa Elena in Guatemala.  The weather looked great, clear skies and no detectible wind.   This is a relatively short flight of about an hour, but first we had to fly to Belize City to refuel and to go through another bureaucratic paper drill.  After breakfast, Morten and I packed up our gold cart with all our baggage and went out to the airport to pack the airplanes.  Not having refueled when passing through Belize City, I was very short on fuel and had perhaps 8 gallons left.  In theory, this is more than adequate for the 20-minute flight across the bay to Belize City, but it does not leave the traditional 30 minute reserve one ought to have for a VFR flight.  I carefully measured the amount of fuel in each tank with my trusty school boy ruler, and concluded that unless some catastrophe occurred en route, I had plenty of gas.  We packed carefully and dusted off our airplanes, neglected for the last 6 days.  After breakfast at Georges, we paid our bill, turned in our gold cart, and hitched a rid on the hotel gold cart back to the airport. 

 

Not wanting to be delayed en route because of my gas situation, it was agreed that I should takeoff first for Belize City.   Morten and Monika did not have the same fuel urgency because in their F-model Mooney they had 10 more gallons of fuel than I did.  After a perfunctory “Mexican run up” while taxiing the 100 feet to the runway we departed to the south and in 20 minutes landed at Belize City.  Here we were met again by our “helpers” who took us through the reverse of our arrival procedures, obtaining in the process an equal number of impressive governmental rubber stamps as on our arrival.  We filed our VFR flight plan to Santa Elena and ordered fuel.  The whole process took the better part of two hours during which Gayle and Monika could only take turns guarding the baggage and roaming the terminal.

 

By noon, we were ready to take off.  Our plan was to make a slight diversion to the north to over fly the Mayan ruins at Tikal where we were planning to spend the following night, and then to fly on to Santa Elena airport.   Morton was about five minutes ahead of me after our takeoff and within 20 minutes we had left Belize territory and had entered Guatemala airspace.  We contacted the Guatemala air traffic controller within a few minutes of each other.  We did not, however, have N4344V in sight since he was perhaps 10 miles in front of us.

 

Shortly after I called in, we detected a small note of panic in the voice of the controller.  We suspect that he was used to handling 3-4 planes a day and here he had two in roughly the same place at the same time.  I suspect the workload was overwhelming.  After some questions about our positions, he gave me an order for an abrupt 30 degree turn to the south (so as to avoid 44V, we presume).  It did not appear that they had radar since our transponders were not blinking.  So the controller was treating us like instrument traffic and providing separation.  So much for my over flying Tikal.  Fortunately Morten took some spectacular aerial shots of the ruins that only whetted our appetite for our upcoming visit.

 

Aerial view of Tikal

 

Flores

 

Our destination airport in Guatemala was in the city of Santa Elena but our real destination for the night was the island city of Flores.  Flores sits just offshore of Santa Elena in the middle of the huge Lake Peten Itza.  Flores is a colorful, somewhat sleepy, semi-touristy city is a jewel-like setting completely surrounded by water except for a narrow causeway connecting the island to the mainland.  It made an impressive sight from the air.

 

The Island city of Flores, Guatemala

 

Santa Elena “Formalities”

 

We landed at Santa Elena airport without colliding in mid air, much to the relief of the Guatemalan controllers.   The local controllers, both en route and at the tower, spoke excellent aeronautical English.  After landing we were directed to a suitable parking place where we were met by a young airport functionary who apologetically asked for permission to disinfect our aircraft with some sort of insecticide out of a spry can.  He then asked for $2.00 for the service.  I figured, “Oh boy” here we go again.  We removed our baggage from the airplanes and with the help of a baggage cart we transported it up to the customs area where our papers were examined.  The impression of the airport was one of quiet and inactivity. We were then told to go to the Flight Service office to close our flight plan.  This took but a minute and we returned to the customs area only to find no one in sight to process our baggage and to extract the usual pound of flesh.  We waited patiently for about 20 minutes waving occasionally at the taxi driver from our hotel who had come to fetch us.   Getting impatient, we tried to search out the now disappeared officials by poking into various offices.  In our non-existent Spanish, we could not hake our desires understood.  All we wanted was to pay our money, get our official papers, and be off.  Finally, in desperation, we went back to the Flight Service office where a little English was spoken.  Much to our surprise, we learned that we were finished. No money, no papers, no hassle.  My god!  Guatemala must be the grand exception to travel in Central America.  We sheepishly picked up our bags and followed our patient driver to the waiting taxi.

 

 

Flores City

 

We had made reservations at the Hotel Isla de Flores, apparently owned by the same people who owned the Tikal Jungle Lodge where were to spend the following night.  We had arranged for a packaged deal of sorts for the two-night stay plus special transportation back and forth between Tikal and Flores.  The Hotel Isla de Flores was a relatively modern well-kept three-story building with light airy rooms with a fine elevated view of the lake.   The hotel had rooms clustered about a three-story light well filled with hanging plants, a precursor, I hoped, for the jungles of the next day.  The young lady behind the front desk was pleasant and charming, as was nearly everyone we had so far met in Guatemala.

 

The lake surrounding Flores

 

Being that it was now after 2pm, we were quite hungry so we set out on foot to find a restaurant.  About a block away we found the Restaurant Luna, quite empty at this hour and went inside.  In short, we ordered a full meal, mostly fresh fish (presumably from the lake) washed down with a bottle of Chilean white wine.  The meal was excellent.  We were feeling quite proud of ourselves for having gotten into a new country without any hassle and, in general, were pleased how well the logistics of trip has so far gone.

 

Lunch at Restaurant Luna

 

After lunch, we walked completely around the perimeter of Flores Island and then up and down the charming narrow and often steep streets.

 


Colorful storefronts on a street in Flores

 

Flores is a rainbow of colorful buildings, interesting shops, charming hotels.  It is a real cultural contrast to anything in the United States.  And it did not seem to be just a tourist town.  Most of the people we saw were Guatemalans living and working in this interesting place.

 

After walking around the island and exploring for several hours we met M&M at a lakeside cafe and ordered excellent margaritas as the sun set over the lake.  I have no recollection of having dinner on Monday evening.

 

Tikal

 

On Tuesday, December 28th, we had arranged for a special ride to the Tikal ruins that are located in a national park about 30 miles north of Flores.  After a fine breakfast at the hotel, our driver was waiting for us at 9am.  We piled into the van and started on our way.  The first 25 miles are on pretty good roads, by Guatemalan standards that swing around the lake to the east and then headed north to the park.  As we drove north, the elevation increased and the terrain became hilly in a small way.  We passed through several villages that seemed neat and tidy but quite primitive.  Most houses were of wood construction with either a tin roof or some sort of palm leaf thatched roof.  The use of color, that was so common in Flores, was evident in villages too.  There were lots of signs of cultivation (on a small scale) and farm animals.  Chickens scattered as we drove through.  The last 10 miles of the trip were within the park itself.  After passing through a manned entrance gate, the vegetation became much thicker, the cleared fields disappeared, and the sun was blocked from our view by the canopy above.  Also the speed limit was apparently reduced to about 40 kph (28 mph) because we just just crawled along for the next half an hour.  I seem to recall a few jaguar crossing signs but that might have been a figment of my lively imagination.

 

Jungle Lodge

 

Our hotel was the Tikal Jungle Lodge.  We arrived at a large lodge-like building and checked in.  This building housed the restaurant and the common area including the “front desk”.  Our rooms were little cabins that had two rooms per cabin.  We were assigned two rooms in the same cabin, but unfortunately M&M’s room was occupied when they arrived.  So they were reassigned a room across the path.

Our room at Tikal Jungle Lodge

The rooms were large, airy and had a nice tile bathroom with a shower.  The most interesting aspect of the rooms was the mosquito netting.  I had never stayed in any place that offered mosquito netting over the beds although one has often seen it in films situated in African, Asian, or South American locales.  As it turned out, we did not need it and the mosquitoes were not much in evidence during our stay.

 

Protection from the natives

 

The Ruins

 

After taking possession of our rooms, we set out to explore the ruins.  We were given a large, nearly incomprehensible, map and set out to find what there was to see.  We followed the signs, paid our ticket price at the gate, and began our stroll down the wide and well-maintained trails.  There were lots of other visitors, mostly Guatemalans so far as I could tell.   

 

It quickly became evident that the ruins are huge and spread over a 25 square mile area and largely still unexcavated.  We were told that the many large mounds of jungle vegetation that we passed, some up to 100 feet tall, were, in fact, additional ruins that have been reclaimed by the jungle and not yet excavated (if they ever will be).  The scale of Tikal is surprising, not just the number of ruins, but the size of the principle temples.  There is no doubt in my mind that the Mayan must have been one of the great civilizations of the world, wealthy, organized and imaginative.  I think the Mayan ruins suggest a civilization as great as those of Europe and Asia, albeit very different.  And without a written language (apparently) much of the sophistication of the culture may be lost.  So today, we see only the remaining monuments and probably very little of the nuances of the civilization.

 

Mayan Temple I at Tikal

 

These temples until the early 1900’s were nearly completely lost to the jungle.  They were hidden by centuries of vegetation and dirt

 

Mayan Temple V at Tikal

 

           

A Dangerous Climb

Temple IV, which we visited in the afternoon after a nice lunch at the lodge, is one of the tallest and is separated from the main group of temples, called the Acropolis.  It is one of the few temples that one is allowed to climb.  The frontal staircase is badly eroded so access to the top (or nearly the top) is by means of a rickety wooden staircase hanging, seemingly without means of support off the left hand side of the temple.  It is more of a ladder than a staircase.  There is one narrow staircase for going up and another staircase for coming down.  To enhance the feeling of stability, a guard at the bottom allows only a few people on the staircase at once.  M&M clambered up the staircase without a second thought.  I decided to follow and had a very revealing experience.

 

The staircase shook with every step.  As I ascended, I actually found it more secure to grasp the stair at chest height rather than the railing that seemed very tenuous.  So I sort of hugged my way up the stairs.  I found myself increasingly alarmed by the height and the unstable structure on which I was depending. 

 

The rickety stairway up Temple IV

 

By the time I got to the “top” I was in a state of some alarm.  What greeted me was a narrow stone platform perhaps 30 inches wide nearly fully occupied by tourists sitting down admiring the view.  From the narrow ledge, it was 200 to 300 feet nearly straight down.  To find a place to sit, it was necessary to pick ones way down the ledge by stepping over legs and bodies. One unexpected lurch, I thought, and one could trip over an outstretched leg and be over the edge in an instant.  With panic rising, I worked my way down the ledge to an open spot leaning heavily into the vertical wall and hoping people would stop squirming.  I plopped myself down on the ledge bracing myself against the wall behind me.  I calmed myself and had to conclude that the view across the jungle tops to the other temples was truly breathtaking.

 

My “panic” really surprised me.  I was never aware of any fear of heights before.  In fact, if anything, I am exceedingly uncomfortable with small spaces.  As a pilot, heights have never bothered me except, perhaps in the few cases where the ground suddenly drops away to great depths such as flying along the perimeter of the Grand Canyon.  Hmmm… I thought.  I learned something about myself.  To add insult to injury, Gayle bounded up the stairs behind me and almost skipped down the ledge to join me.

 

The view from the top of Temple IV

The trip down was something of an anti-climax since all the while I felt I was getting closer to solid ground and safety.

           

We spent the entire day walking around the ruins until the sun was setting and the jungle was taking on a much darker hue.  We saw some interesting sights.  Monkeys in the treetops.  Columns of huge ants guarded by soldier ants with enormous pincers on their very enlarged heads.  And finally, our very own virgin sacrifice ceremony.

 

Virgin Sacrifice

 

 

Blood Curdling Screams in the Night

 

The lodge dining room served a nice dinner multi course on white linen tablecloths.  We finished off the evening with a few drinks and trundled off to our rooms with the knowledge that the power went off at 11pm and would not be turned on till morning.  We were very tired, however, and ready for a restful night’s sleep.  It wasn’t meant to be.  Some time in the middle of the night, we were awakened by an horrendous noise that was so loud that it almost hurt the ears.  Our first thought was that the jaguars was killing some poor beast of the forest, perhaps a wild pig or similar prey, on the roof of our cabin.  I was going to investigate by peeking out the front door but Gayle forbade me to unlock the door.  “Are you crazy” was her sage comment muttered from the security of her covers.  I could see nothing through the windows.  Each shriek was followed a second or two later by an echo from somewhere far away.  The horrible sounds continued for 15 minutes or so and then trailed off.   The performance was repeated about 3 or four times during the night.  Each chorus seemed more gruesome than the one before it.  What was amazing was the huge volume of the sounds and the apparent close proximity to our cabin.  We hadn’t a clue as to what could be making this dreadful noise.

 

Monkey in trees above Tikal

We inquired the next morning at the front desk and were told, with a smile, that these nocturnal sounds are made by howler monkeys. 

 

 

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