Travel Log: Day 6

Thursday, July 3, 2008: Belize City, Belize and Altun Ha

This day was spent in Belize. It was a very nice place, but definitely not a very developed one. I couldn't get a picture of it, but there was a roadside billboard that said: "There is beauty in abstinence. Abstinence saves lives." I just thought to myself I would love to see some billboards like that here in the states! Wouldn't that be spark up some controversy? The "highway" that we took to the ruins of Altun Ha was terrible! It was narrow and not paved well so it was full of potholes. As we turned onto the road our tour guide for the day told us "now begins your 45 minute back massage courtesy of the Belizian government." I didn't know what he meant until we were bouncing along in our rickety bus, not a very comfortable ride :)

Once we got to Altun Ha we were ready to get off that bus and check out the ruins. Altun Ha was very different from Tulum since it is a smaller site, there were a lot less tourists there, and there had been a lot less recovery work done. Altun Ha was much older to and is believed to be an authentic Nephite city. The problem encountered here other than lack of money to do the work is that the tradition of the Mayans was to add another level to their structures every 52 years and so as they uncover the mounds and go deeper the limestone layers get weaker and weaker. Andrew liked that you could explore and climb up the ruins here and that you could use your camcorder.

Andrew on top of the ruins

These were some stairs that had been uncovered, but the rest of the structure is still yet to be seen

Andrew daring to eat some native All spice. I don't know what he was thinking!

This is some video footage of what is believed to be a baptismal font. There were some decorative additions made to it that date in Lamanite times, but the original font was built during the time of the Nephites.

This is the church in Belize City. All of the churches in South and Central America are fenced in like this for security.

This is the church headquarters building. The missionaries live here and are hard at work in Belize!

This was a really fun day for both of us; however, I was so exhausted by the end of it that it was all I could do to keep up with Andrew. We did a little bit of shopping before we got back on the ship. Andrew was pretty proud of himself because he got a hand carved Mayanish chess set from a Belizian man there. He was asking $65 for it, but Andrew talked him down to $40. It was so funny because the guy kept trying to get Andrew to throw his watch in the deal too. Andrew loves that cheap old thing and he was not about to part with it. We probably still paid too much for it but oh well. In case any of you are wondering the exchange rate is 2:1 so US currency is worth twice as much as Belizian money.