Fighting Montezaum

So as our quest continues to conquer seeing as much of the Mayan countryside as possible it seems that we have come up against a force  who’s hand is moving against us in rather insidious ways.  It’s true that Montezuma was an Aztec from further north, and I wouldn’t say our actions in any way mirror his adversary Cortez but our luck has been too poor not to begin pondering its possible source.

Belize, being located in the heart of the ancient Mayan nation is covered with ruins, buildings, tombs and artifacts.  One Blue Creeker, David, whom I’ve dubbed the “Crocodile Dundee of Blue Creek” (I’ll tell you why later) claims that given any five acre plot in Belize you will find some Mayan ruins.  He’s a road builder and has uncovered countless numbers of these as he clears bush and hills with his equipment.

In Search of El Dorado

Entering Lamaini

So one more bright Saturday morning found the six Canadian conquistadors loaded up in our trusty old Ford Explorer, roaming the bad back roads Belize in search of the Mayan legacy.  Lamanai is an ancient city of the Maya, only an hour from Blue Creek.  The Maya here offered strong resistance to the Spanish, burning the two churches there throwing off the yoke of Spanish oppression; clearly they are not fond of intruders.  The first part of the trip was easy enough and after finding the site we immediately began our archeological examination these massive stone monoliths, hidden in the dense jungles, set alongside the shores of a crocodile infested blue, green lake. 

Approaching the temple

The Jaguar temple was first with two 15 foot Jaguar faces at the bottom it eked with antiquity.  We scurried up all twenty-five meters for a Gilmour family photo under the sprawling tree at the top.  After exploring the palace where Erica pictured herself playing soccer in the ancient ball court, some silly planking pics and the realization that those huge black balls on the trees are termite nests, we accidentally stumbled into a troop of Howler Monkeys traversing this section of Jungle.

Jaguar Temple

The Jaguar

Howler monkey is after me

One minute I was happily clamouring over an ancient mountain of rock, trying not to lose my footing.  The next I had an uncanny sensation travel down my spine as I realized I was being watched from not too far away.  It started with a loud snap from the nearby trees which didn’t sound at all like the wind. Then there in the tree over my head was a big black shape slowly creeping through the upper branches of the trees.  He stopped, and just stared at me trespassing on his domain.  Hearing more noises I quickly looked around only to notice a whole troop of big black apes traversing this section of the jungle, just a little way above my head.  Thrilled and excited to be this close to such a local migration I pulled out my camera completely oblivious to how heavily they outnumbered me.  Unfortunately the monkeys weren't interested in obliging me by posing for photos.  They wouldn't even humour me with one of their famous howls which have them cataloged as one of the loudest animals on earth.  They continued on their trek like we conquistadors were of no real consequence to their daily life.

High Temple

Discovering the High Temple we began a fantastic climb right out of the Jungle canopy, of thirty-three meters, about 11 stories, into the sky.  From here we could actually see the distant hills of Blue Creek which were much less than an hour away as the crow flies.  There are no guard rails or ropes here so it was up to the Gilmours to keep intrepid four year old Sadie from falling off the precipitous edges she was so intent on climbing along.  The view was spectacular.

Making our way down

View from the top

A Clean Escape

Well we wrapped up our exploration, apparently without upsetting any old, dead Mayan kings, by climbing the last temples, taking pics with our head in the mouth of an ancient Mayan god, and taking an essential stop at the market to re-hydrate after hours of climbing and sweating in forty degree heat.  With a quick tour of the little educational museum it looked like we might get away from this Mayan city state uncursed and unharmed.  In the Belizean village nearby our explorations continued to be rewarded as we uncovered the best empanadas and grenachas we had eaten so far.

Basking in the glories of all we had discovered that day we picked up a hitch hiker from our restaurant who was looking for a ride to shipyard, a nearby Mennonite farming community that lives in the old ways of horses, buggies and old fashioned clothes.  We had been meaning to check out this neighborhood anyway.  The thing is that buggies and cars don’t need the same quality of roads so in checking out some of the farms our Explorer was having some interesting encounters with the road, some of which left us a little nervous.  But it was out on the wide open road with the sun starting to fall to the western horizon when disaster finally struck.  As with many misadventures they may appear rather innocent at first so we had no idea how deep Montezuma’s anger against us would run.

Stranded in a Foreign Land

As we were soaking in the sights of old fashioned farmsteads along the road our trusty Explorer died.  It just died; no grunts, pops or whistles, just dead on the road.  So here we were, an hour from home, in the middle of a dirt road, in the middle of a German speaking  wilderness, in a foreign country, without CAA, without gas stations or tow trucks, without any of the usual ways one might solve this problem at home.  What to do.  Well over the course of the next two hours we tried many things.  Our hitchhiker caught a ride on a passing motor bike with a promise of sending help; nothing came of that.  The local farmer had no gasoline (of course) or ideas but told us the community store was five miles further down the road.  Finally, a pick up full of teenagers from Belize City who were working on a local mission project to grow crops to feed the homeless, stopped to save us.  After several failed plans they tied our truck to theirs and dragged us to the Mennonite community store.

We found no help there but what a sight that was.  Five to fifteen buggies were lined up at any given time, coming and going.  Men in the overalls and hats wandered into the chaos surrounding a central counter and proceeded to buy groceries, share gossip and drink Coke.  Their wives and daughters stayed put in the buggies waiting for their Men to return.  While they all stared at us from under the brims of their bonnets and hats, we stood in stark contrast to their ankle length dresses and jackets, scantily clad in our tank tops and shorts.  We discovered that another eight miles down the road was a shop which had a, glory be, computer to diagnose what our problem was.  A Spanish speaking, non-Mennonite, haggard looking, worker who stopped to buy gas for his rusty old pickup offered to pull us there.  So off were again.

Our Explorer getting a lift

As the sun was setting we arrive at a yard completely out of place for this traditional, religious enclave as it was covered with automobiles.  We wheeled the truck through the barbed wire fence and onto the lot.  One of the Mennonites at work there showed us where to park at which point they all proceeded to ignore us.  After fifteen or more minutes of this we realized we were not going to get help unless we got it ourselves.  Erica, who was uncomfortably shoved into the role of translator as she has the only knowledge of low-German in any form discovered that they were too busy now and would look at the vehicle on Monday.  Not happy with this I, through Erica and some broken English persuaded them to look at the vehicle right away.

Centro de Diagnosticos

Another hour and a half later with real darkness setting in, the mechanic stole an electronic part from his father’s Explorer and made our hearts jump with relief as the engine finally roared back to life.  $170 later we were finally, safely back on the road home; but it seems that good old Monty wasn’t finished with us yet.

Cruising along, out on the main road our headlights were picking up all kinds of bats and other night life when the engine decided to die again, leaving us completely stranded the same way as before.  Now this was getting scary; out of options to look after ourselves we finally picked up the phone to beg someone to come out to our rescue.  Once again it fell to my amazing host Annie and her family to save us.  Apparently leaving a car on the road overnight means it will be stripped to the frame by morning.  So, her husband John rounded up a vehicle trailer, found a helper and headed out to find us.  This left us marooned on the road in the dark for the better part of two hours.

In the Still of the Night

As we sat in the heat of the night, sweaty, hot and exhausted from the exertions of the day, the sounds of the fields and jungle began encroach on our feeling of relative safety within the vehicle.  Trucks would roar past sending clouds of dust through the windows, yet we were glad the drivers didn’t stop to begin the process of absconding with our vehicle while holding us at gunpoint.  The distant chatter of bandits plotting our demise materialized out of the darkness in the form of two locals travelling between villages on bicycle.  A pee brake at the side of the road became a probable encounter with rattle snakes on account of stories told previously by Crocodile Dundee Dave.  At long last lights coming over the distant hill proved friendly as the familiar sound of John’s diesel 4x4 drew closer.   Several attempts and sometime later we had the Explorer loaded on the trailer without breaking the wooden planks we used as ramps. 

As the wee hours of the night found eight of us huddled into John’s pickup, slugging up the infamous hill that climbs into Blue Creek proper; I’d like to say that Montezuma; or whichever of his Mayan compatriots was having his way with us, was finally through.  This was not to be the case.  However for one night at least our hosts in Blue Creek were able to rescue us and bring us home safely from the challenges of facing foreign adversaries in the wilds of the tropical Mayan wilderness in Belize