Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Belize City, Belize

Today is Wednesday, so it must be another day of ruins in Central America.  We are anchored about 5 miles off shore with three other much larger cruise ships.  Large, very new local tenders take about 20 minutes to make the crossing to the port facilities in Belize City, the largest and most commerical center of the country.  Belize was formerly British Hondorus; in the 1960s it gained independece from Britain and changed the name of the country, but are still memebers of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Since we have another score excursion this morning, we again take advantage of our Butler, who brings a hot breakfast of fresh-cooked eggs and bacon, along with the usual fruits, juices, pastries, and coffe (with warm milk).  We meet our tour group in the Riviera Lounge and await the call for our tender to shore.  Today's bus ride is thankfully shorter than yesterday (just a little more than one hour), but the bus is older and the springs are shot, so it is a rather uncomfortable ride.

But our destination is the Lamanai landing point on the New River, where we embark on a high-speed catamaran ride to the deserted Mayan city of Lamanai--the only one in Central America for which we know its actual Mayan name. The ride lasts a little more than one hour, and our captain, Andy, takes great pride in his ten years of experience guiding boats along this river.  He delights in high-speed curves and abrupt stops to look at wildlife (mostly birds). But the spray of the water and the lightness of the breeze is a welcome relief from the heat and humidity.

The Lamanai site itself is well cared for, with good signage.  The original community was about 10 miles long and 5 miles wide.  We will walk through only a small part (thankfully!), across grass fields and well-tended pathways.  We visit three important sites:  the Jaguar Temple, with its great abstract jaguar face carvings; the Mask Temple; and the High Temple, at which many tourists climb to the top (on specially-built wooden stairs).  However, not us and not today.

We have another journey downriver to our original point where a light lunch of chicken and rice and beans await us.  Then it is back on the bus for the drive to Belize City and the 20-minute tender to our ship.  Our guides have given excellent presentations in very good English, providing another day of exciting discoveries and very long travel.

Tonight we again eat in the Grand Dining Room--Will has blue crab salad appetizer, endive soup, and coq au vin; Larry has frog legs served vol-au-vent, Caesar salad, and rack of lamb with garlic bread c rumb crust.  Excellent choices all around.