Flores, Guatemala

Day 6: We decided, for a little weekend excursion, to head across the border into neighboring Guatemala! Benque is so close, that it was only a quick 20 minute walk to the border. After paying our exit fee and getting our passports stamped, we eluded the over-charging taxi drivers and found a ¨collectivo¨bus to take us to Flores for real cheap. Flores is a little tourist-friendly city on an island in the middle of Lake Peten Itza, the second largest lake in Guatemala. We had heard from Jam about a sweet little hostel called Los Amigos, an inexpensive refuge for backpackers from all over, complete with excellent vegetarian-friendly cuisine, a ping-pong table, and resident parrots. We were lucky enough to secure the last two available beds.

The city of Flores is so colorful. The buildings are all brightly painted, full of shops selling beautifully patterned clothing and textiles, arts and crafts. We did a lot of shopping, which was tricky because everything was so over-priced for the tourists, that each purchase involved a drawn-out bargaining battle. Often what it took to get the price down enough was to actually pretend like we were leaving the store before they´d name a price that we were happy with. We ended up getting pretty good deals for everything, but it wasn´t easy. We made our way back to the hostel at nightfall, ordered some brownies, ice cream and coffee, and caught up all the way on our blogging (escargots, we´ve been). We´re looking forward to visiting what is called the most magnificent of all the Mayan ruins, Tikal, tomorrow.

Pictures from Day 6

Spanish Lookout

Day 5: This was a day of driving all around Western Belize with Jam, Aisha, Mathias, and Jorge, the head carpenter on the building project. Our main errand was a trip to Spanish Lookout to pick up more wood and electrical supplies. First stop however was in San Ignacio, where we bought a new bottle of rum rainforest bitters and some copal incense. On the way to Spanish Lookout we crossed another river via ferry, and Jorge indulged us with two tasty vegetarian tomalitos (little tomalis). They were so good, and the fish thought so too as they swarmed like mad to pick off any remaining morsels from our discarded corn husks. Spanish Lookout actually looks quite a bit like, say, rural Pennsylvania. It´s home primarily to emigrated Mennonites, a community that unlike the Mennonites of North America (like Alan´s uncle Michael), are actually quite industrial. The men often drive pickups, the teenage boys drive motorcycles, and the girls generally drive around in ATVs. They look like the Amish of Pennsylvania, with their straw hats and neck beards, and some actually look a little inbread--a problem the community is trying to address by exchanges between the Belizean and Canadian Mennonite communities. Spanish Lookout is full of hardware and agricultural supply stores run by the Mennonites, and Alan got a good deal on a nice little rug for his future apartment. Amidst going back and forth between various supply centers, we stopped at a local ice cream shop, where the dragonfruit and kiwi flavors were something special indeed.

Pictures from Day 5

Back to the Jungle

Day 4: Each morning that we go to the eco-village site, Jam drives us in his red Cobra pick-up truck, and the locally hired workers, a friendly team of brothers, hop in the back to spend the day building what is the first house on the property, the geodesic dome type structure. The plan this day was for us to plant some seeds on one of the two milpas, but we didn´t get around to it. Instead we went to another newly forged road and found even more awesome crystals. Jam then took us through the jungle to see some of the more remote potential building sites, particularly the place he´s hoping to build his own house on, a jungle ridge with huge rocky cliffs with an area that would make a great ampitheatre for throwing jungle dance parties. On the way, while Alan had stopped to take a picture, he soon realized he had chosen a poor spot to stand, as an army of little black ants rushed up his leg and started biting like mad. In his attempts to brush them off, they jumped onto his arms where they continued their onslaught. In the end, the 30 or so bites had hurt quite a bit, although the little buggers didn´t seem too venomous, except that his whole right arm turned red and stayed that way for the rest of the day. Then a bit later, Alan nearly walked straight into a massive spider web, home to a giant multicolored spider that was most likely quite poisonous. Of course, Alan moved in with his camera for the close-up. After some more hiking, some vine-swinging, and more medicinal plant identification, we made our way down to a different spot on the river for some sunning and some swimming. The trail down was a bit treacherous, but Jam and previous volunteers had done some trail building a few months earlier which made it doable. Along the descent we ran into what must have been about a 10 foot snake, black with yellow markings. We weren´t sure if it was poisonous, but we didn´t take any chances. The part of the river we hung out at had a number of little rapids, one of which was tame enough to shoot our bodies through, which was fun. To shoot through, you had to let it pull you under water for a stretch, and Alyssa inhaled a bit of water, so later she was advised to eat some raw garlic as a precaution agaist ¨upset stomach.¨ Since we´ve been here, we´ve yet to have any kind of gastrointestinal turmoil. After sunning on the rocks like lizards, and a river rock power nap, we walked up the river a bit as Jam forged a new trail with his machete. We came across tapir tracks, the national animal of Belize. When we got back to the construction site and the workers were finishing up, Alan came up with a design for a seed-germinating flower pot using one sheet of magazine paper and two staples.

Pictures from Day 4

Xunantunich

Day 3: Jam needed to go into the capital to deal with some immigration stuff, so we had the day to explore on our own. Our town of Benque is within walking distance from Xunantunich, (pronounced shoo-NAHN-too-nich, meaning ¨Stone Maiden¨ after the female ghost seen climbing the temple) a quite impressive Mayan site, so that´s where we went! To get there, a giant iguana saw us off as we crossed the Mopan river in a hand cranked ferry. Since it´s one of the lesser known Mayan ruins, we basically had the entire site to ourselves, free to take some pretty awesome pictures without random tourists contaminating the shots. We climbed the main temple, called ¨El Castillo,¨ a hugely impressive structure, the second tallest in Belize, and the view was spectacular. Dispite the magnamity of the temples, being so deep in the jungle the site wasn´t even discovered until the 1950s when it was excavated and beautifully restored by a team led by an American archeologist. Included in the restoration were detailed stucco friezes of Mayan symbology on the side of El Castillo. Unfortunately for you the reader, we still can´t upload our pictures, so you´ll have to be patient. Although it was a hot and sunny day, once in a while a quick rain shower would pass through to cool us off just enough.

That evening, after another yummy meal prepared by Aisha and Mathias, we watched the movie Zeitgeist on Jam´s projector screen. If you haven´t seen this movie yet, you need to. Chances are it will change the way you think about everything. No joke.

Pictures from Day 3

Day 2: First day at the Eco-village to-be

Day 2: What a day! Our first day on the site was spent with Jam, who took us around showing us everything. He showed us the construction site, a beautiful house on stilts designed by Jam and modeled according to sacred geometry. This will be the first house on the property. He showed us a number of Mayan mounds that need excavating, as well as three of the caves that, when explored, are sure to be filled with ancient Mayan artifacts, mostly pottery. We saw the milpa (farm plot) which is currently growing bananas and plantains, and our first task will be planting more fruit trees of a wide variety on the milpa. A big problem for Belize is slash-and-burn farming, where entire hillsides of rain forest are cut down and burned by uneducated locals in order to grow a year's worth of crops that use up the soil's nutrients and erode by water, becoming useless and therefore abandoned. The eco-village we're helping to create is completely organic and the milpas are refertilized in a way that makes them indefinitely sustainable.

Throughout the day Jam taught us a ton about the medicinal properties of the local trees and plants. We have pictures of each, but unfortunately the internet connection here at the library is too slow to load them. We'll add them soon with captions.

We hiked around the property for a while, howling back at the howler monkeys, and gathering calcite and rhodochrosite crystals from the newly forged roads on the property. Jam also took us on a little excursion across the river to a beautiful hidden waterfall, part of the Pine Forest Nature Reserve. The water flows down from the Mayan mountains so it's so clean it's almost drinkable. How refreshing that was!

It's the rainy season now, which really only means that throughout the day you get sporadic showers. It's been mostly sunny though, and we're already quite crispified. It's hot and humid, but not uncomfortably so, and the mosquitoes are really not as much of a problem as we anticipated, although sweet blooded Alyssa has already had to deal with a variety of bites. Eating bitter herbs (which go well dissolved in rum) and rubbing copal pods on the skin helps a lot. Copal is one of the most sacred of Mayan plants, and the copal oil is used for ceremonial incense among its many uses.

This was also the first day of the annual 9-day Benque Viejo festival, and there will be fireworks going off each night. Good timing!

Pictures from Day 2

Day 1: We're Here!

Day 1: Touch down in Belize to discover our one and only piece of luggage, Alyssa new rucksack, did not make the flight with us. Common occurrence apparently. We opted against the long fumy bus ride and took a 2 hour cab ride instead to Benque Viejo, a friendly little town near the Guatemalan boarder that we would be calling home for the next two weeks. Our hosts are great. There's Jam, one of the most interesting and friendly people I've ever met, who is managing the development of the Eco-village. He's from British Columbia and although he's only been in Belize a couple of years, his knowledge of the Belizean culture, and local flora and fauna seems virtually limitless. Herbalist, eco-enthusiast, energy healer, founder of the Rainbow Religion; he's pretty much the best task manager we could have hoped for. Mathias and Aisha, our other two hosts, have been just as warm and welcoming. Mathias is from Germany and after living in Belize nearly two years, he met Aisha, who's from Belize. Among her many talents (belly dancer, a great cook), she is an excellent henna artist and hopefully Alyssa will be able to show you some of her work. The two were recently married and have already applied for land from the Belizean government, and hope to have their own self-sustaining eco-farm/community. All Belizean nationals are entitled to good amounts of land, which is plentiful here, and often has un-excavated Mayan ruins waiting to be discovered. Also living here are two cats and one friendly dog who stay busy chasing toads and geckos. We had a great meal of "beans and rice" (as opposed to "rice and beans," in which the two are mixed together), and slept very well in our own cozy room. The next day would be the first day seeing, exploring, and learning about the eco-village, a few miles away deep in the sub-tropical rain forest.

Pictures from Day 1