Belize City, Belize - Lamanai Mayan Ruins

The whole reason we chose Western Carribean is because I wanted to see Mayan ruins.  Most places the boat stopped had ruins near by, but the only excursion we bought was to the Lamanai ruins deep in the jungle of Belize.  Although they have only unearthed 3% of what once was there, they have the second largest pyramid of all Mayan ruins and it is one of the largest Mayan sites.  At one time, over 60,000 were said to live in this civilization and it is the only site that still had original Mayan people still living in it when it was discovered.  Very cool!  

Although our ship arrived in Belize City, our excursion was an all day adventure.  We took a chartered bus ride for an hour, where we stopped at a restaurant right on the Lamanai river for snacks and bathroom break.  Here, we loaded up onto 2 river boats that went up the river for another hour to the ruins.  The river snaked around and curved through the lush landscape and the boats went super, super fast!  It was like being on a thrill ride! 

 An iguana sunning himself in the tree tops

 This plant looks like a snake cactus!  So unique.

 A local fishing.

 He's hard to see, but there is a crocodile on the edge of the water.

 We were excited to explore some ruins!

 At one time there was over 3000 structures at this site.  We saw just 5-6 that have been uncovered.

 This was the first pyramid we saw.  It was a king's burial place.  However, Mayan pyramids aren't hollow like Egyptian ones.  They are like and onion with layer after layer.  When the structure got old, they just built another layer on top of the old layer.  To the left (out of shot) is the burial place of the king's wife - who appears to have been killed though a blunt head trauma at the time the king died.  Apparently, they have found similar burials in other ruins like this.  

 This was the second ruin we saw and we were allowed to go to the top!  A set of wooden stairs on the side too you up half way and then you climbed up those huge upper stairs to the tippy tippy top, where about 10 people could stand.  

 The stairs were very steep!

 Here we are at the top.  You could see forever in every direction.  It was so cool.

 Here is the view of the river from the top.

 It is a long way down!

 We saw a bunch of howler monkeys sleeping in the trees on our way down.  My two goals for the day were now complete - seeing Monkey's and climbing ruins.  I was so happy!

 Here is the third pyramid we saw.  They think this one was in the public/ceremonial square.  The king lived directly across from this pyramid and there is a huge flat open space in the middle with an original mayan calendar on a huge circular rock.  

 The acoustics were amazing here.  You really could hear voices from a far distance. 

 Here is a quick glimpse of the fast boat ride back.  It was super fun.

 They fed us la yummy rice/beans/chicken lunch back at the restaurant, where we enjoyed more coke.  Doesn't this seriously look like a coke commercial?

We mostly slept for the hour bus ride back to the boat.  It was a full day of great memories!

It was very interesting just driving through another country though.  Belize City only has one stop light and it is broken.  Hahaha!  Lots of pot holes in their "highway" and an entire different way of living. Luckily, we made it back to the boat just in time.  This was by far our most expensive day, but worth every penny.