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Not too long ago, the Northern Highway was an insult to vehicle and body. A single-car-width strip running down its center had once been paved, but the accumulated potholes of many years did so much damage to vehicles that wise drivers kept to the unpaved shoulders. On my first trip to British Honduras, the minibus in which I traveled suffered three flat tires between the Mexican border and Orange Walk. It took more than twelve body-wrenching hours to cover the hundred miles to Belize City.

Bad as the Northern Highway used to be, its construction in the 1930s was a major advance for the colony. An alternative was provided to the coastal boats that provided a sometimes shaky link between Belize City and Corozal, and a great impetus was given to the development of the sugar industry. Mayan ruins were raided for surfacing materials, a cultural loss, but a practice in keeping with the methods of the Maya themselves, who often re-used the building materials of their ancestors.

With realignment and reconstruction, the Northern Highway is less of an adventure, though the recherché thrills of extreme discomfort and uncertain arrival time can still be experienced on the southern Hummingbird Highway and such secondary roads as exist in Belize. The Northern Highway is now one of the easier routes for the traveler who wants to visit archaeological sites, experience some of the tropical vegetation zones from coastal swamp to pine barren to limestone scrub to luxuriant semi-rain forest, observe wildlife in the Crooked Tree sanctuary, or look in on the small-town mestizos and rural Mayans and Mennonites of the north. Handily, the road provides a gateway to Mexico as well.
 
 

On the Road

Driving time from Belize City to the Mexican border, a distance of about 90 miles, is under three hours. Buses take four hours or less. The route is almost totally flat, and, now that the road is wide and in good repair, less interesting than it was when traffic was forced to move at a snail's pace.

Through the mangrove belt on the outskirts of Belize City, the roadway is banked just above the level of Haulover Creek on one side and the sea on the other. Past the swamps, the Northern Highway traverses patches of sandy soil once largely covered with pine—a few scraggly specimens remain, along with palmettos. Most of the land, though, only supports grasses and other low growth characteristic of the edges of swampy areas. Here and there are farm houses on stilts. The population is sparse, despite the proximity of Belize City.

At Ladyville, a community that stretches along the road in the vicinity of Mile 9, is Phillip Goldson International Airport. Ladyville is well-built and prosperous, with assorted small industry, British and Belize Defence Force barracks, and a couple of hotels (mentioned under Belize City). It is also home of Raul's Rose Garden, pointed out to passing tourists as the most reputed house of ill repute in Belize, though it is not the sole contender for that title.

At Mile 18, a branch road leads directly westward to villages with such picturesque names as Double Head Cabbage, Burrell Boom and Bermudian Landing. All are on the Belize River, which once served as a meandering highway to the coast. Bermudian Landing, 26 miles from Belize City, formerly a timber transfer point, is now mainly a farming and ranching center, known for its unique Community Baboon Sanctuary.

No, there aren't any baboons in Belize, at least, not as the word is used in other countries. "Baboon" is the local name for the black howler monkey, which flourishes in forests along the Belize River. Similar communities elsewhere are threatened by forest destruction. This sanctuary was established in 1985 to forestall problems, as forest lands are converted to farming.

Unusually, all of the sanctuary consists of private lands. Owners have pledged to preserve food trees, riverside vegetation, and forest corridors in areas of cleared land, in order to give black spider monkeys a sufficient area in which to sustain their population. The payoff for the farmers is reduced erosion.

Trails through the sanctuary allow visitors to look in on—or up to—howler monkey family life. Howlers travel in the treetops, in groups of four to eight, feeding on leaves, flowers, and fruits, especially wild figs. Listen for the howlers' piercing, rasping call—it's more like the roar of a lion than a howl.

The lowland forest of the sanctuary varies from dense riverside tangles of trees and vines to drier pine forest and savanna, and is home to almost 200 species of birds, and many other forms of wildlife.

Travel Details

The easiest way to reach the sanctuary is to drive or take a taxi or a tour. The road is slippery clay in parts.

Buses for Bermudian Landing leave George St. near Orange St., Belize City, at noon, 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.; another leaves at 12:30 p.m. from beside the Pacific store on Cemetery Rd., Belize City. Return buses are at 5 a.m. and noon. Inquire for directions and current schedules at the Belize Audubon Society, 12 Cork St., Belize City (tel. 227-7369), before you visit. (The Audubon Society sponsors the reserve, along with the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of Milwaukee County.)

Hours at the sanctuary are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A welcome center has maps and exhibits concerning the land-use plan, and answers the question on everybody's mind: why do howler monkeys howl? A couple of bare rooms are available next door for about $10 double, and meals can be arranged for a few dollars each. There is also tent space.

Guides

In the company of a local guide (fee about $5 per hour), you can walk through the pretty village, with its modest houses scattered under the cashew trees and coco plums, and simply step out of the horse pastures and into dense tropical forest, sprinkled with ramrod mahogany trees, in one of the strips that make up the reserve. Your guide will point out the trumpet tree on which the howlers feed; identify the flora, and maybe a passing gibnut; and on a good day, steer your eyes toward a baboon. But be warned: though you can sometimes see whole families of monkeys crossing the cable that provides passage over the road, on other days they they're stay-at-homes.

Facilities Nearby

On the way to the baboon sanctuary, the road follows the Belize River. Baboon River Canoe Rentals in Burrell Boom can set you up with a canoe or kayak. Call 228-2101 before you set out to set the rate and make sure somebody's there. It's less than 20 miles from Belize City, but it really is jungle, with iguanas, toucans and macaws giving you the once-over all along your route.

Little Eden Guest House (tel. 228-2052, P. O. Box 1713, Belize City) is a pottery studio with a couple of guest rooms sharing toilet facilities, on a palm-studded mini-estate. The rate is about $40 double with breakfast, and the location is convenient if you're driving and don't wish to spend the night in Belize City.

At Sand Hill, the route divides into the New Northern Highway, and the Old Northern Highway. The latter meanders toward Orange Walk just inland from the coastal swamps.

About 28 miles north or Belize City along the poorly maintained Old Northern Highway is the junction for the access road to Altun Ha. Follow the side road for two miles to the west to reach the ruins. The name of the site is simply a translation into Mayan of Rockstone Pond, a nearby settlement.

Mounds covered by trees and vines, the remains of what was once a great city, spread out over an area of more than 25 square miles at Altun Ha. Excavations have been concentrated in the central part of the city, where more than 275 structures have been found in an area about one thousand yards square.

Mayan Outpost

Altun Ha was probably first settled long before the Classic Mayan era, perhaps as many as 2000 years ago. For a Mayan city, the site was unusual. The soil is thin and poor, which has led some to speculate that Altun Ha was a trading center rather than a self-contained agricultural community. Good evidence for this thesis comes in the form of a number of unusual green obsidian blades and figures turned up in a tomb at the site by Dr. David Pendergast, of the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto. The objects date from about 200 A.D., and are virtually identical in style to others found at Teotihuacán, far to the north in central Mexico. This style didn't penetrate to more grandiose Mayan centers, such as Tikal, in northern Guatemala, until much later, which suggests that trade and cultural influences in Middle America might have moved initially along the coast, and only later to the interior. Altun Ha is less than ten miles from the sea, and just outside the swamp zone that must have seemed unlivable even for the resourceful Maya.

Agriculture might also have been important to the inhabitants of Altun Ha, not only for staples—corn, beans and squash—but also to produce export crops, such as cacao. Other possible food sources were wild plants, game, and, unique to the Maya of Belize, seafood.

Sights at the Site

The major structures of Altun Ha, called pyramids and palaces, surround two central plazas, which have been excavated and partially restored. ("Pyramid" is a handy designation for a massive platform of rubble faced with finished limestone blocks, surmounted by a temple. "Palaces" are more rambling structures than pyramids, with less massive bases.) At Altun Ha, the temple bases are roughly oval in form and terraced, with staircases facing the plaza. The temples atop the bases, where they survive, are multi-roomed limestone structures, with corbelled interior arches. The corbel, or false arch, consists of layers of stone on each side of a room, protruding successively inward, until the two sides can be capped by a single block. The corbel can span only a narrow width, so massive Mayan structures contain claustrophobically small amounts of interior space.

Plaza A, the more northerly of the two central plazas, is surrounded by five pyramids and one palace. The visible parts of its temples are only the outermost of a series of superimposed buildings. The Maya periodically built new, more elaborate temples right on top of their old ones. The direct ancestor of all the temples was probably a simple thatched hut atop a paved platform. Both elements grew and became more complex and sturdy over the centuries.

Pyramid A-1, the Temple of the Green Tomb, on the west side of Plaza A, revealed an especially rich funeral chamber in its depths, with human remains and more than 300 jade pieces, including pendants, beads and figures, as well as earrings, obsidian rings, pearls, and the crumbling fragments of a codex, or book. Excavations in structure A-4, to the southeast, uncovered beads of a gold-copper alloy, pearls, and seashells from the Pacific, indicating that goods from as far away as southern Central America reached Altun Ha.

Plaza A was apparently the center of Altun Ha until about 550 A.D., when the addition of Plaza B enlarged the ceremonial precinct.

On the east side of Plaza B is structure B-4, the Sun God Temple, named for the carvings of Kinich Ahau, the sun god, on either side of the first set of steps. At just 59 feet in height, it is the tallest structure at Altun Ha, but its importance has to do with more than its relative prominence. For in a tomb in the rectangular stone-and-mortar mass at the top of the temple was discovered the largest carved-jade piece ever found in Middle America, a squashed-looking representation of Kinich Ahau weighing more than nine pounds.

Other tombs in structure B-4 held offerings of jade pendants and beads. Charred jade fragments found near circular altars suggest that periodic reconstruction of the temple was accompanied by the destruction of valuable objects.

About 500 yards south of Plaza B is a reservoir that was fed by springs and rain runoff. A stable water supply was, of course, essential to any large settlement, and the Maya improved on the original natural pool.

Carbon-14 dating techniques place the first reconstruction of a building at Altun Ha at about 150 A.D. Building went on for several hundred years, and the center probably flourished until about 900 A.D. The desecration of tombs indicates that Altun Ha was not simply abandoned in a migration to some other location, but came to an end amidst civil turmoil and revolt. Finds of trash from about the fourteenth and fifteenth century show that people still lived at Altun Ha, at least intermittently, but it was no longer part of the great Mayan cultural tradition that survived in the Yucatan, to the north.

Visiting Altun Ha

The Altun Ha archaeological zone is open from 9 a.m. to 5_p.m., with a small entrance fee.

The most practical way to get to Altun Ha is by tour or taxi, or in a rented car. The road is narrow, lined with dense forest, and potholed, but passable at a slow pace..

Passenger-and-cargo trucks come down the old highway in the morning and return from Belize City in the evening—not very practical for a day's round trip. Otherwise, you can try to hitch a ride, though there's little traffic past the junction at Sand Hill.

Keep in mind that almost all the trees have been cut down at Altun Ha, and the site is open and bare and frankly less attractive to a casual visitor than Xunantunich, Caracol, and Cahal Pech in western Belize.

Normally I would advise you to shun stray dogs. But Altun Ha has a resident, friendly, somewhat mangy cur who obligingly leads the way on the best climbing route up each of the temples. He is certainly the least obnoxious tour guide I've ever encountered, and deserving of a bone.

Past the junction for Altun Ha on the old Northern Highway is:

Maruba Resort, Mile 40.5, Old Northern Highway, tel. 322-2199. 14 rooms. $84 single/$106 double, plus 15% service plus tax. Add $35 in junior suite, $50 for three meals. Visa, Master Card, American Express. Airport pickup, $45. In the United States: Maruba Tours, P. O. Box 300703, Houston, TX 77230, tel. 800-627-8227 or 713-799-2031, fax 713-795-8573.

Just beyond the ruins of Altun Ha, and off the tracks that most visitors follow, Maruba is in a class by itself among the lodging places of Belize, a luxurious fantasy that blends almost seamlessly into the jungle.

Rock-paved paths lined by flowers lead through palm-shaded grounds past parrots and toucans and garden sitting areas with tables tiled in faux tablecloths, to a flower-bordered pool where the shower emerges from a waterfall; to a massage room wafting incense; to a central rotunda dining pavilion, where the furnishings seem to sprout from the jungle floor along with the palms and ferns. The creatures of the vicinity, morelet crocodiles and kinkajous, gather at a pond.

The guest rooms are all different, some individual cabanas, some in small outbuildings, others updated Mayan ranchos. One has a tub of Mexican tile, stuccoed walls, a platform bed with cane sides, and a futon as an alternative to the mattress. The jungle suite, up on the third level, shares the forest canopy with macaws and monkeys, and comes with video, whirlpool and refrigerator.

The kitchen relies on produce grown on-site—pineapple, grapefruit, limes and mangos and coconuts—and game is usually on the menu. Presentation is excellent, right down to the exotic beverages served in coconut cups.

Beauty is the theme of Maruba. Try on a full body massage; tropical herbal wrap; seaweed body wrap; aromatherapy massage; mineral baths. The ingredients are drawn from petals and leaves and seeds and bark, in consultation with a local herbalist.

Maruba has an a la carte menu for body treatments ($45 to $60), or, if you've been roughing it underwater or on a boat, you can be picked up for lunch, a visit to Altun Ha, and a choice of treatment, at about $150. Assorted packages are available. If you choose the right package for a river trip from San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye, you'll stop here for lunch.

Stop me from going on.

Circle K Lodge, up the road from Maruba and 14 miles from the junction with the new Northern Highway, offers basic summer camp-style cottages with linoleum floors and no decoration, on disorderly grounds. The rate is about $25 double. Call the community phone, 322-2600, to make contact, and inquire if they’re currently in operation and if meals are available.

The new route of the Northern Highway passes through stunted pines and scrub in sandy soil, gnarled, twisted trees, palmetto and savannah. There is some seasonally dry forest that loses its leaves for part of the year, and large expanses of pasture. Intermittently, a road leads off to some farming venture started up for the export trade. But as in the rest of Belize, the land is mostly empty of people.

Signs identify occasional settlements, such as Biscayne Village, population 268. Several miles down the road another sign wishes you a good journey upon leaving the same village—though you haven't seen more than one or two houses. Staggered irregularly along the way are 15-foot steel posts, installed to hinder small dope-smuggling planes from using the wide, straight, smooth road as an airstrip. Most of the poles have been removed, or bent aside. There are few places to stop for a drink, and no gas stations until Orange Walk.

Astride the Northern Highway about halfway between Belize City and Orange Walk is the Crooked Tree wildlife sanctuary, consisting of several lagoons, and surrounding marshes and swamps. Operated by the Belize Audubon Society, the 3000-acre reserve is currently in a state of development.

Notable at Crooked Tree is the jabiru, a stork that is the largest flying bird in the hemisphere, with a wing span of up to twelve feet. Jabirus nest in the northern lowlands of Belize starting in November, during the dry season. There are also wood storks, and assorted herons, ducks, grebes, kingfishers, vultures, ospreys, kites, hawks, anhingas, egrets, and many other bird species, water-loving and otherwise. The varied habitats and plentiful food sources also attract black howler monkeys, crocodiles, coatimundis, and turtles and iguanas.

Source: Belize Audubon Society

Least grebe
Pied-billed grebe
American white pelican
Olivaceous Cormorant
Anhinga
Least bittern
Bare-throated tiger-heron
Great blue heron
Great egret
Snowy egret
Little blue heron
Tricolored heron
Cattle egret
Green-backed heron
Black-crowned night-heron
Yellow-crowned night-heron
Boat-billed heron
White ibis
Roseate spoonbill
Jabiru
Wood stork
Black-bellied whistling duck
Muscovy duck
Blue-winged teal
Northern shoveler
American wigeon
Lesser scaup
Black vulture
Turkey vulture
Lesser yellow-headed vulture
Osprey
Gray-headed kite
Snail kite
Common black hawk
Black-collared hawk

Peregrine falcon
Ruddy crake
Purple Gallinule
Common moorhen
American coot
Sungrebe
Limpkin
Black-necked stilt
Northern jacana
Lesser yellowlegs
Solitary sandpiper
Spotted sandpiper
Least sandpiper
White-rumped sandpiper
Baird's sandpiper
Laughing gull
Gull-billed tern
Caspian tern
Ringed kingfisher
Belted kingfisher
Amazon kingfisher
Green kingfisher
American pygmy kingfisher
Vermilion flycatcher
Great kiskadee
Boat-billed flycatcher
Social flycatcher
Tropical kingbird
Tree swallow
Mangrove swallow
Northern rough-winged swallow
Barn swallow
Blue-gray gnatcatcher
Prothonotary warbler
Red-winged blackbird
 
 

Visiting Crooked Tree

Only the western part of the reserve, taking in the Northern and adjacent lagoons, is open to casual visitors. Take the Northern Highway to mile 33, where a branch dirt road cuts west onto a causeway over the Northern Lagoon, terminating at the old logging village of Crooked Tree, four miles from the highway.

From Belize City, the Jex bus departs for Crooked Tree at 11:55 a.m. and 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. from in front of the Habet Store, 34 Regent St.; a Batty bus leaves at 4 p.m. Departures from Crooked Tree for Belize City are usually at 5, 6 and 7 a.m. Verify schedules at the Audubon Society, 12 Cork St., if you plan to travel by bus.

Otherwise, it's a hot and dusty (or wet and muddy) walk from the junction on the Northern Highway, and there isn't enough traffic to count on hitching a ride. Residents of the village might have boats available for exploring the area. Toward the end of the dry season—April and early May—the water could be too low to launch a boat. But much can be seen on foot, from along the causeway lined with lily pads, and the shore of the long, low, lagoons, quiet and deserted except for water birds, and quite lovely.

The visitors' center, on the right-hand side at the end of the causeway, has displays that will help you identify birds and plant features, such as the logwood swamp across the water to the southeast. Three trails range from a one-hour loop on the jacana trail to a two-hour trek out the limpkin trail.

Before visiting the reserve, drop in at the Belize Audubon Society, 12 Cork St., tel. 227-7369, Belize City, and inquire about the current state of facilities, and to pick up a folder.
 
 

Accommodations

Crooked Tree Resort (P O Box 1453, Belize City, tel. 224-4101, $52 single/$65 double, 10% service), in an idyllic lakeside locale, has seven barely furnished, raised sapling cabanas with hot showers, on the edge of Crooked Tree village. The access road can be difficult during rainy periods, but walkways fashioned from tree stumps will keep your feet dry. The cuisine is plentiful rice and beans in the large, thatch-roofed dining room. Attractive dock and deck. Horses, guide service, tours and fishing are available by advance arrangement through Native Guide Systems, 1 Water Lane, Belize City, tel. 25819.

Bird's Eye View Lodge, tel. 227-2304 in Belize City, birdeseye@btl.net, has five concrete rooms toward the south end of the village—turn left after you cross the causeway. The property is still in development, and landscaping and other details will arrive in due course. In the meantime, you can look right out from your room to jabirus in the lagoon. The rate is $45 single/$55 double with breakfast.

Paradise Inn has four cabanas to the north of the causeway, beyond Crooked Tree Resort, at $50 single/$70 double, plus $15 for three meals. Boat tours ($20 per person), horseback riding ($15), fishing and birding are arranged. Call 225-2535 or 221-2084 or write advcam@aol.com if you plan to stay here, before you go out.

About 50 miles north of Belize City, after the old and new Northern Highways reunite, is the Tower Hill toll bridge over the New River, built in 1967. If you're driving south, the old Northern Highway, following a more easterly route near the coastal wetlands, is the road to take to the Altun Ha archaeological site. Just beyond the river on the west side (going north) is Jim's Cool Pool, a spring-fed circle of water, with a roadside refreshment area. Buses, unfortunately, don't stop there.

Settled by refugees from the Caste War in the Yucatan in the last century, Orange Walk is predominantly a town of Mestizos, people of mixed European and American Indian descent. Most noticeable on its streets, however, are the Mennonites who come from nearby communities to buy supplies or market their goods. With their simple denims and frocks, and their horse-drawn carts, the Mennonites are a bit of archaic rural life from the temperate zone incongruously transported to the tropics.

Aside from Mennonite undertakings, the main business in and around Orange Walk, as elsewhere in the north, is the growing, processing and transport of sugar cane. Just south of town is Belize's main sugar mill, where trucks loaded with cut cane wait in lines sometimes miles long. At times, the cultivation of cannabis has also been an important part of the economy, though it is now discouraged by the government, and many an airstrip has been shut down in an attempt to hinder clandestine exports.

Orange Walk is about 55 miles from Belize City by road. With a population of about 10,000, it is one of the larger towns in Belize. But Orange Walk is hardly bustling. The unpaved streets, old mission church, straightforward, block-lettered business signs, clapboard-sided buildings with tall squared fronts, and the Mennonites with their old ways recall an earlier era. Add a couple of saloons and a sheriff, and you might think yourself in the Old West.

In fact, the remains of a couple of forts recall the wild and wooly era of Indian raids on Orange Walk in the nineteenth century. The marauders were not Apaches, but Mayas from across the border in Yucatan who attacked logging camps and held workers for ransom. In 1872, a detachment of the West India Regiment at Orange Walk held off a superior force of Icaiche Maya under Marcos Canul. The Maya leader died in battle, and the frontier settled down shortly thereafter. Some remnants of Fort Cairns remain from those troubled times, and an obelisk commemorates the battle.

Getting There

Buses running between Belize City and Corozal/Chetumal pass through Orange Walk about every hour. See Corozal coverage, below, for schedules.

ACCOMMODATIONS

Orange Walk is not a usual stopping place for visitors. There's no sea view, and the sugar-cane fields aren't all that interesting, though archaeologists and adventurers of one sort or another use the town as a base.

The best you can do for lodgings is the Hotel Barons, a concrete structure at 40 Belize-Corozal Road, the main street (tel. 322-2518, $35 single/$45 double). The 31 plain rooms have private showers and are air conditioned, and there's enclosed parking and a bare patio with pool.

Comparable accommodations, without the pool or air conditioning, are available at the Chula Vista Hotel, at a gas station on the main highway in Trial Farm, a couple of miles north of Orange Walk (tel. 322-2365, about $25 single or double).

Camie's Restaurant and Hotel (tel. 322-2266, $20 double) has five rooms in the pink concrete building right on the square, at Park St. The Taisan is another modern and plain hotel and restaurant, one block north of Camie's. Jane's Hotel is a big house in an attractive location, at the east end of Bakers Street overlooking the New River, but the rooms, singles only, are cubicles. $12 per person. The Hotel Mi Amor (tel. 322-2031), on the main street, has better rooms but a less attractive location. About $15 per person, some rooms with private bath.

Orange Walk has the usual selection of Chinese restaurants. At the Golden Gate, 36 Bakers St. two blocks west of the main street, you can find hamburgers, chow mein, and assorted Chinese specialties to fill your stomach for anywhere from $5 to $10. Not too elegant. The Orange Walk Restaurant, no. 27 on the main street, also serves Chinese food in a dark, air-conditioned environment. $10 and up, no doubt to cover electricity costs. There are several other Chinese eateries.

Orange Walk Tidings

Facilities in Orange Walk include a couple of bank branches and a small movie house.

Jungle River Tours, 20 Lover's Lane (P. O. Box 95), tel. 322-2293, arranges trips to Lamanai.

Luis Godoy, at a roadside stand in Trial Farm just north of Orange Walk (east side of the road), can take visitors on a tour of his family orchid farm, at $20 per person. He will also take a group of four to the Lamanai ruins for about $175, including boat, lunch and beverages, and can arrange fishing for snook and tarpon in the New River. Call 322-2969 for more information and to reserve. Or ask for Mr. Godoy at Crystal Auto Rental in Belize City, tel. 223-1600.

Near Orange Walk

The Orange Walk district abounds in archaeological sites. Lamanai, one of the largest Mayan cities in Belize, stretches for several miles on high ground along the west side of the New River Lagoon. Lamanai was occupied from the early formative period of the Maya until well after contact with Europeans—one of the longest continuing spans known for any Mayan site.

Lamanai was probably first inhabited 3500 years ago. The earliest permanent buildings were erected around 700 B.C. and were continually enveloped by larger, more elaborate structures. The last stage of the major temple at Lamanai, N10-43, was completed around 100 B.C., and might well have been the tallest Mayan structure of its day.

Not-So-Ancient Maya

Lamanai was excavated by a team of archaeologists from the Royal Ontario Museum, led by David Pendergast. More than 700 buildings were identified in the two-square-mile central section. A ghastly cache of children's bones found under one stela suggests that human sacrifice might have been practiced. A ball court marker dates from around the tenth century A.D., a time when Mayan civilization elsewhere had declined. The city's name might mean "submerged crocodile," reflecting the special esteem held by the Maya for that animal. The crocodile motif shows up on pottery and architectural decorations.

In a part of Lamanai known as Indian Church, walls still stand from a sixteenth-century mission, one of the few remaining signs of Spanish presence in Belize. An earlier church stood on the site of a Mayan temple, and might well have been sacked by unwilling converts who reverted to their traditional practices.

The people of Lamanai, who survived whatever it was that brought down Mayan civilization elsewhere in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., fared less well in their encounters with Europeans and new diseases. By the time the British established a sugar mill at Indian Church in the nineteenth century, Chinese laborers had to be brought in to work the plantations nearby.

Getting to Lamanai

In a four-wheel-drive vehicle, Lamanai is about 35 miles—and two hours—from Orange Walk by a track that takes a wide circle away from the New River.

Most visitors, however, arrive on a more interesting adventure excursion up the New River. Guides point out the birds along the way (red-billed hawks, northern jacanas walking on and darting over lily pads, cormorants, black-collared hawks, anhingas, flycatchers, anhingas); the buttress-trunked trees and the tangled vegetation lining the banks (hicaco, or coco-plum; epiphytic cactus); and the mammals. Sometimes even a manatee will swim by. Clearings and barns and cattle mark the Mennonite settlement of Shipyard, stone embankments the sites of abandoned logging villages. The river continually divides and rejoins through forest and grassland and swamp, then opens up into the New River Lagoon, suddenly more than a mile wide, on the banks of which ancient Lamanai stretches. In calm weather, the glass-like surface of the water mirrors the blue of the sky and white of the clouds, and the knotted growth to either side. But don't be surprised if it rains. Operators provide ponchos, which also serve as windbreakers on what can be a surprisingly cool ride.

A day tour to Lamanai from Belize City is priced at about $125, but seats may be discounted out of season or on a last-minute basis. One reliable operator with guaranteed departures is Belize Mesoamerica Tours. In Orange Walk, inquire of Jungle River Tours, 20 Lover's Lane (P. O. Box 95), tel. 322-2293.

Jim's Lamanai Experience has recently been operating daily trips to Lamanai from Jim's Cool Pool restaurant, just north of the toll bridge over the New River. Departure by boat (the Lamanai Lady) is at 8:30 a.m., returning to the highway at 4 p.m. You can also book this trip through the Batty Bus office in Belize City (Mosul St. at Bagdad, a block from East Collet Canal, tel. 227-2025) for $60 or so, including the ride both ways on the bus.

Visiting Lamanai

The ruins of Lamanai are unreconstructed and only partially cleared, with limited trails cut by archaeologists and squatters. The footing is slippery in the extreme, and the mosquitos are fearsome, even for Belize. Apply repellent before you enter the site, carry along a recall dose, and cover as much of your body as you comfortably can.

A small visitors' center focuses on wildlife and vegetation in the area, and holds some of the objects discovered at the site. Notable are eccentric flints, tripod vases in various shades of red (some with hollow legs containing pebbles for acoustic effect), and stone sculptures.

Near the boat landing is structure N9-56, the Temple of the Masks, named for its decorations of large facial medallions, or masks. The underlying structure dates from about 200 B.C., but mostly later, outer layers of construction are visible. Its major sculpture, about nine feet high, is a realistic face, with what might be a jaguar pelt across the top section, and a basketweave motif on the upper surface and down the sides. The walls inside still retain some of the red pigment originally used to decorate the temple. Within, two tombs have been discovered. One contained a body encased in a clay shell, alongside wooden figures with jade jewelry—an odd procedure even according to standard Mayan practice of the time.

A rounded throne-like structure at the base contains curving channels. Could these have drained off the blood of sacrificed captives?

Overturned stelae, or inscribed stones, litter the base of the Temple of the Masks, and all of Lamanai. The figure on Stela 9 has been identified from its glyphic inscription as Lord Smoking Shell, a ruler of the city.

Most stelae have been left where found, face down. Some are cracked by the heat of fires that once were burned before them, probably after the decline of Lamanai. In parts of Guatemala, natives still burn incense at the ancient sites.

Structure N10-43, the High Temple, rising to 112 feet, the largest structure at Lamanai, is dated at 100 B.C. It may be climbed by a steep, intact staircase, to a perch above the jungle, swamps, and lagoon. There is no surviving superstructure, or sanctuary, at the summit, as on Mayan temples of the Classic period, such as those at Xunantunich. Most likely, whatever stood atop the High Temple was built of wood and thatch, and rotted away. Findings here include a large black-on-red bowl dated at 700 A.D., seashells, and a dish containing a bird skeleton.

Beside N10-43 is a rather eroded Ballcourt. In the cistern under the large central marker were found traces of mercury, which probably was mined in northern Mexico.

Structure N10-9, in a grouping to the south, was probably erected in the sixth century A.D., and subsequently renovated. Stairways, repeatedly modified, decorate the sides. Numerous jade objects were found here.

The Temple of the Jaguar is an eroded structure, with two jaguar masks, or facial medallions, one at each of the lower corners of the main face. It is one of the few structures at Lamanai with a surviving prominent central stairway. The Acropolis displays several successive layers of construction.

Structure N10-2 is on the west side of a small plaza in Lamanai's southern grouping. The main façade used columns, as in Postclassic construction in the Yucatan, but here they were of timber. Dozens of burials were discovered inside, some unadorned, some with clothing and decorations that identified warriors or nobility.

South of the central section of Lamanai are the remains of the sugar mill that operated here from 1860 to 1875, the old machinery rusting away, intertwined with strangler figs. A brick cistern was used to store molasses. The mill was steam-powered.

Farther south is Indian Church, one of the few remaining outposts of Spanish missionary efforts in Belize. A sixteenth-century church, built of stone from ancient Lamanai, was destroyed by Maya loyal to their traditional ways. Only the lower walls remain. A second church was erected by the persistent Christians, but it, too was attacked, though more of it remains standing.

In the immediate area is the modern village of Indian Church, its houses of cane and split wood erected on Mayan mounds.

More Than a Ruin . . .

Lamanai is an ancient city, but it is also a botanical reserve and wildlife habitat. Troops of howler monkeys have specific territorial claims in the ruins. Oropendolas are common around the Temple of the Masks, Aracaris, a type of toucan, near Temple N10-9. Northern jacanas freuent the edge of the lagoon.

Trees along the trails are labeled for easy identification. The "give-and-take" tree has poisonous spines, but the sap of its roots is curative. The huge tubroose, or guanacaste, is often used in boatbuilding. Strangler figs, allspice and copal, with a resin used for incense, jam the jungle floor. And there are silk cottons (or ceibas, held sacred by the Maya), rubber trees, cedars and breadnuts (ramón, once a Maya staple).

Staying at Lamanai

Lamanai Outpost, tel. and fax 223-3578 in Belize City, 888-733-7864 in the U.S., reefsruins@aol.com $90 single/$110 double.

This lodge is, indeed, an outpost of adventure, at Indian Church on the edge of ancient Lamanai, surrounded by dense forest alive with monkeys and macaws. You'll stay here mainly to visit the ruins, but there are additional attractions and activities: canoeing, windsurfing, horseback riding, massages, tarpon fishing, plant hunts in the jungle.

The Cuello archaeological site, four miles west of Orange Walk, is not developed for visitors, although it has produced some of the most exciting recent discoveries in the study of the ancient Maya. Mayan civilization was once thought to have had its beginnings around 900 B.C., the earliest date of settlement previously known at any Mayan site. Excavations at Cuello have pushed that horizon all the way back to 2600 B.C.

A team led by Dr. Norman Hammond of Cambridge University studied Cuello and nearby sites in the mid-1970s. Through carbon-14 dating of wood found in what appeared to be post holes, they determined that Cuello had been occupied more than 4000 years ago. The plastered floor in which the wood was found, together with succeeding layers of structures, demonstrated a continuity of occupation into the Classic Mayan era, and suggest that Cuello was a predecessor of Mayan culture in northern Belize, and perhaps in other areas as well.

Along with bits of old wood, Dr. Hammond's team discovered fragments of a previously unknown style of pottery. It was once thought that Mayan cultural development received a great impetus from contacts with other groups, such as the Olmecs of Mexico. The Cuello pottery predates any possible Olmec contacts, indicating, perhaps, an independent start to Mayan civilization, or perhaps still-unknown cultural influences.

Artifacts from later years of the Cuello site tell something about the way of life of the inhabitants. There is evidence of a mass slaughter that took place around 400 B.C. A stingray spine, used, perhaps, in a religious ritual, shows that the sea was exploited. Blue jade and obsidian objects dating to as far back as 1200 B.C. show that extensive trade was being carried on with places hundreds of miles distant.

The higher, later levels at the Cuello excavation indicate that it was a minor center during the Classic period of Mayan civilization. The population probably lived from corn agriculture and hunting, and traded macaw feathers and animal pelts for goods from outside the area. One rather unusual discovery is that in some of the burials at Cuello, earthenware pots were placed over the heads of the deceased.

To reach the Cuello site, follow Bakers Street west from the center of Orange Walk. The ruins are behind the Cuello Distillery. Ask for permission to enter, or call the distillery first, at 322-2141. A taxi out this way costs about $4.

Southwest of Orange Walk

Farther west along the same road, and then south by southwest, about 30 miles from Orange Walk, are the Mennonite settlements clustered around Blue Creek Village. Farther on is an area set aside for conservation and ecological studies by the Programme for Belize.

Chan Chich Lodge. 12 cottages. $100 single/$125 double plus tax, meals $45 per person per day, no obligatory service charge. Master Card, Visa, American Express. Reservations in Belize: P.O. Box 37, Belize City, tel. 227-5634, fax 227-5635. In the United States: P.O. Box 1088, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568, tel. 800-343-8009, fax 508-693-6311, info@chanchich.com.

Almost as far from Orange Walk as Orange Walk is from Belize City, Chan Chich is one of the newest of Belize jungle resorts, one of the most comfortable, and certainly the most controversial. The thatch-roofed cottages and common buildings sit squarely in the plaza of a Mayan ceremonial center, overlooked by another, larger plaza. To some eyes, this is a desecration. To others, it's a practical way to forestall further looting (some of the temples can be entered by looters' slit trenches), while encouraging knowledge of the ancient and modern Maya, and of the tropical forest. Chan Chich (possibly "little bird" in Mayan) is part of a series of related, adjacent projects, that include farming, archaeology, and wildlife preservation and research on large tracts of privately owned former logging and chicle land.

Despite the remote location, the cabins, built largely from locally obtained thatch and hardwood, have electricity, hot showers, and ceiling fans. All have porches. The central building contains the kitchen, dining area and bar. And the surrounding forest is populated by monkeys and assorted cats and the rest of the menagerie for which Belize is famous, as well as orchids and tropical trees. Usual activities here are birding, hiking, canoeing and horseback riding. If these, and ruin climbing (at Chan Chich itself and nearby sites), river swimming, and reading and watching the rain forest are your vacation pleasures, then you have found your place. If you crave bars and fish stories, seek elsewhere.

An air charter for three from Belize City to the old logging center at Gallon Jug, five miles away, costs about $150. The drive from Belize City via Orange Walk takes about four hours in the dry season. An alternate and rougher route is passable in the dry season from western Belize.

North of Orange Walk

NOHMUL is a major archaeological site a mile west of San Pablo, a village eight miles north of Orange Walk on the Northern Highway. Nohmul ("big hill") was built mainly during the pre-Classic period (before 250 A.D.), and the Late Classic Period (after 600 A.D.). The two major groups of mounds, in the middle of sugarcane fields, are connected by a raised roadway, or causeway. The main structure is about 25 feet high. Nohmul was first excavated by Thomas Gann, who carried off jewelry, shells and pottery from the site to the British Museum in London.

The area north of Orange Walk is the most agriculturally developed part of Belize, with sugar cane the main crop. Belizean cane rates with the Cuban variety for its high sucrose content. But despite the quality of the product, the sugar industry has had its ups and downs. Once dominated by small farmers, sugar production came largely under the control of Tate and Lyle, a British firm, in the sixties. Despite the economies of large-scale cultivation and mechanization, the British company found it unprofitable to grow cane, and now most of the sugar of Belize is once again grown in small plots, though Tate and Lyle does the processing. Part of the crop goes to Jamaica, after preliminary conversion to molasses, for distillation into alcohol. As the world price of sugar has oscillated, so have the fortunes of the northern farmers. Mostly well off in normal times, they have experienced unprecedented but short-lived prosperity when the world price of their product has skyrocketed, and disappointment and debt when it has fallen, or when smut has ravaged the crop.

Eighty-five miles from Belize City by road, and only about ten miles from the Mexican border, is the sleepy seaside town of Corozal. Founded by Mexican refugees in 1849, for many years the place was a cluster of adobe buildings. Hurricane Janet destroyed most of the old town in 1955. Today's Corozal is part Mexican-modern, with concrete-block buildings in the center of town, and part Caribbean, with clapboard-sided houses raised on stilts to sit squarely in the refreshing sea breeze. Corozal has about 8500 inhabitants, and derives its name from a species of palm tree. Sugarcane cultivation remains the most important economic activity, though with years of low world prices, and an increasingly restricted U.S. market, the agriculture of the region is diversifying.

Getting There

Venus Bus Service operates from Belize City (Magazine Road, nine blocks west of south end of Swing Bridge, tel. 227-3354) to Corozal every hour from noon to 7 p.m. Some buses are Greyhound-type units. Batty Bus Service departures are from Mosul St. at Bagdad (a block from East Collet Canal, tel. 227-2025) every hour from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m., with an express bus at 6 a.m. All buses continue to Chetumal.

From Belize City, Maya flights leave the municipal airstrip at 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., stopping at San Pedro on the way; Tropic Air at 8:40 a.m. and 2:40 p.m.

HOTELS IN COROZAL AND NEARBY

Corozal has the best choice of accommodations in northern Belize. Most hotels are at the south end of town, about a half-mile from the center. If you arrive by bus, ask the driver to drop you in this area.

Tony's Inn (P. O. Box 12, tel. 422-2055, fax 222-2829, tonys@btl.net), on the seafront off the Belize City road, consists of comfortable, Mexican-style motor-court units, built in concrete, amid nicely landscaped gardens. There is a mini-marina with a stretch of precious sandy beach, and the management is friendly, capable and helpful. The 30 rooms come in standard, moderate and deluxe category (the top of the line is with air conditioning and cable television), and go for about $45 to $70 single/$55 to $80 double, slightly less from May to December, plus 10% service plus tax.

Posada Mama, G Street South, tel. 22107, is a mini motel in a residential area, executed in blue-painted concrete block. Rooms have telephones, air conditioning, and cable television. To reach Mama, turn west at the largest building along the main road through town, then right at the first cross street. The rate is $35 single, $45 double, and it's a bit of a walk back to anything. They get a by-the-hour trade.

The Caribbean Motel and Trailer Park (tel. 422-2045), also at the south end of town, has seen better days, but its tiny, Mayan-style thatched-roof cottages are adequate at (still only) $15 per day, with private toilet and shower, for one or two. You can hook up your camper in the large, grassy, palm-shaded parking area, at a fee that varies according to size and electrical usage.

The Maya Hotel (tel. 422-2082), a few blocks south of the town center, has ten clean, simple rooms in a newish building, going for $20 single/$25 double, plus tax, all with ceiling fans, hot water, and private bath, and some facing seaward.

The Capri Hotel, on the sea front about six blocks south of the square, is mainly a cavernous pool hall, but bare rooms upstairs are available for $8 single/$10 double, or less without private bath.

Nestor's Hotel, 123 Fifth Avenue (tel. 422-2354, nestors@btl.net), is the choice for budget travelers. About $15 double (or less) for a small, clean room with fan. Weekly and monthly rates available. There are about 16 rooms altogether. Simple meals are served. Ask for Mark. At four stories, this is one of the tallest buildings in Corozal. Go up to the roof for commanding views to Cerro Maya, across the bay.

FOOD

In town, the outdoor marina tables with thatched umbrellas at Tony's Inn are the most pleasant place for eating (and the bar-terrace is the most pleasant place for drinking). Breakfast is available for $5 to $6, including chilled, fresh orange juice, before anyone else has opened. Sandwiches, chili with cheese (excellent), nachos and tostadas at lunch run $3 to $5, and there are basic steak and fish, and lobster salad for $8 to $14, as well as house specials. The permanent breeze makes this a great place to spend an afternoon. Clean, and good service.

At the Maya Hotel, plain meals with chicken, steak or eggs are $6 and up. The Caribbean Trailer Park has a small, screened eatery, and if you can find it open, you can get a cheap burger, fish, or grilled meat. Club Campesino, on Fourth Avenue a couple of blocks north of the square, serves chicken. Open evenings and into the wee hours. There are also several Chinese eateries, including the Rexo, at No. 9 Sixth Street, northeast of the town center near the sea; the Bumper, at the south end of Fifth Avenue, and the King of Kings, Fourth Avenue just north of the square. For basic food, Nestor's Hotel offers one of the most inexpensive menus in Belize. Breakfasts are $3 or less, sandwiches $2 or less, fish or steak $4.

Facilities in Corozal

The Bank of Nova Scotia and the Belize Bank provide exchange services, if you haven't used the border money-changers. Morning hours only, except Fridays.

Phone ahead for hotel reservations in Belize City or on Ambergris Caye from the BTL office, in the blue and white building a half-block from the central park.

Travel Services

Ma-Ian's travel service, 13 G St. South, tel. 422-2744, fax 422-3375, caters to guests at area hotels. They run trips to Lamanai, Chan Chich, Cerros and the Kohunlich ruins in Mexico. To any of these destinations, the price for a day outing for four persons is $300 or slightly less. They can also fetch you from the international airport ($100) or even Cancun ($250).

Menzies Travel and Tours, P. O. Box 210, Corozal, tel. 422-2725, runs trips to the Cerros archaeological site across the bay (see below), and to Mexico.

Jal's Travel Agency on Fourth Avenue, one block north of the square (look for the Sahsa sign) sells air tickets.

AROUND COROZAL

From the right perspective, Corozal is picturesque: palm trees fringe a lovely bay, and sailboats sometimes glide offshore in the constant, cooling breeze. North of the town center, along the water, worn wooden houses with porches atilt keep watch.

But, despite its seaside location, Corozal has no public beach. Swimmers enticed by the waters of the bay must walk along the sea front away from town and find a place among the rocks as a jumping-off point. (Along the way, perhaps they'll encounter groups of youngsters who will call out "white man!"—not in prejudice, but simply as an observation.)

Corozal is one of the more inexpensive places in which to survive in Belize, which, with town's non-commercial charm, has attracted some outsiders. As you walk around, you might run into one of the retired foreigners who lurk in the woodwork.

Like Orange Walk, Corozal was a target of Indian raids in the last century. A couple of brick piers along the central park are all that remains of the old fortifications, which were insufficient to protect the inhabitants. The town was captured a number of times by Mayan raiders from the Yucatan.

Inside Corozal's town hall is a mural by Manuel Villamor Reyes, a Belizean artist who now lives in Chetumal. Originally painted in 1953, the mural showed the settlement of Corozal by Mestizo refugees from Yucatan. When called upon to restore it in 1986, Villamor decided to repaint the whole work, taking into account his own changes as an artist. The new mural shows the history of Corozal on a grand scale, in the tradition of the artists of the Mexican Revolution. Here are depicted the grievances of the Maya that led to their revolt, as well as the economic exploitation of northern Belize during the colonial regime. If the town hall is closed when you pass through, you can view the mural through the side windows. It's on the rear wall.

Mexican-style fiestas—called "Spanish" celebrations by local English-speakers—provide some break from the humdrum of small-town life in Corozal. Christmas, Carnival time and Columbus Day—a holiday of Hispanic unity throughout Latin America—are all observed by everyone in Corozal. Particularly colorful are the posadas of the Christmas season, when celebrants re-enact the search of Joseph and Mary for shelter.

Though the residents of Corozal are largely bilingual, their English often lacks fine tuning. A sign at the market along the water warns that those caught riding bicycles inside "will be persecuted by law."

Santa Rita

About a mile east and north or Corozal are the Santa Rita ruins, first explored by Thomas Gann, then Corozal's doctor, around the turn of the century. Gann uncovered sculptured friezes and stuccoed murals, as well as burials containing pottery of the late post-Classic period, and jade jewelry. Fishing-net sinkers from the site show that the inhabitants exploited the waters, while copper tweezers must have been imported from some distance. Gann suggested that Santa Rita was part of a chain of coastal lookouts established when Mayan civilization centered in the Yucatan. According to his theory, fires along the coast might have served as a means of high-speed communication. But Santa Rita flourished during an earlier period as well. Some pottery remains have been dated to two thousand years before Christ. A tomb from the Early Classic Period (about 300 A.D.) was excavated in 1985 by Diane and Arlen Chase, revealing objects made from seashells and stingray spines, and a skeleton decorated with jade and mica jewelry. Santa Rita might have been the most powerful city in the region at this time, and most certainly was again preeminent in the period just before the Spanish Conquest, to judge by the burial of a ruler of that period, with golden ear decorations of a type worn by high nobles in central Mexico. The site, then known as Chetumal, was still occupied when the Spanish arrived in Belize. The limits of the city reached well into present-day Corozal.

To get to Santa Rita, take the road toward the border north from Corozal, and continue straight on a secondary road where the main road curves to the right. The ruins are in the area between the two roads, across from the Coca Cola depot. The site is generally not very impressive physically, compared to other Mayan cities in Belize. Of the many original buildings, only Structure 7, 50 feet tall and partially restored, remains standing, with two of its four rooms intact.

On from Corozal

Northbound buses for Chetumal pass through about every hour, until 8 p.m. Collective taxis are also available for Chetumal, from the main square, charging about $3 per person.

Venus Bus Service operates to Belize City (from Gilharry's Bus Terminal in the town center) every hour from 3:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.; Batty Bus departures for Belize City are from the square every hour from 12:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.. Service is curtailed on Sundays, and times are approximate.

Maya Airways has two flights from Corozal to San Pedro (Ambergris Caye) and Belize City, at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. (daily except Sunday), Tropic Air at 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. daily. Buy tickets from Jal's Travel Agency on Fourth Avenue, one block north of the square (look for the Sahsa sign). The airstrip is almost three miles south of town, a $3 taxi ride away. A new airstrip is scheduled to open at Consejo Shores, northeast of Corozal, in the near future.

Consejo, seven miles northeast of Corozal, on a point of land just a couple of miles across the bay from Chetumal, has attractive vacation accommodations.

Southeast of Corozal are the Cerro Maya (or Cerros) ruins, a collection of mounds on the point of land a across the bay, a few miles away. One of the temples here is 69 feet (21 meters) high, and has been partially excavated and consolidated. There are also ball courts, and remains of large facial medallions. Cerro Maya was occupied as long ago as 400 B.C. Part of the original site, which must have watched an important trade route, is now under water. Raised-field gardens might have provided provisions for traders, who reached the central area of the site by canal.

Cerro Maya can be reached by boat from Corozal, or by a long, roundabout land route during the dry season. If you try walking along the shore, you'll have to find a friendly boatman to take you across the mouth of the New River.

Almost all of northern Belize is fringed with swamp, but the widest belt is the area of waterlogged land that juts out to the east and just to the south of Corozal. Brackish pools and lagoons and entangled mangrove make excellent breeding places for a number of water-loving birds, including storks, ibis, spoonbills, herons, flamingoes and egrets, as well as for shrimp, lobster and fish.

Sarteneja is a tin-roofed settlement of fishermen and boatbuilders, huddled on a dot of dry land at the northern tip of the swamp, near Shipstern Lagoon. Picturesque and rarely visited, Sarteneja was founded by immigrants from the Yucatan in the nineteenth century.

Despite its present isolation, there is good evidence that Sarteneja was a regional metropolis for the ancient seafaring Maya. The remains of 400 Mayan structures have been identified within and near the present-day village. One, Structure 30, has been partially restored. Others have been used as sources of building materials by more recent inhabitants. Locally manufactured shell jewelry has been discovered, along with gold and copper objects from elsewhere in Central America. Occupation of the site was continuous from early Classic times into the 1700s.

The remains of a nineteenth-century sugar mill are about a mile south of the village.

Getting to Sarteneja

Roads cut into this lightly populated area from Orange Walk and a point farther to the south along the Old Northern Highway, though these are not always passable. Inquire at a service station in Orange Walk before proceeding. From Orange Walk, take the bridge east over the New River. The road for Sarteneja follows the east bank of the Progresso Lagoon. An alternative is to approach the area by boat from Corozal or Ambergris Caye; or to fly into Sarteneja. Maya Airways planes operating between Corozal and San Pedro sometimes touch down at Sarteneja, allowing the visitor to spend a few hours, or you can take an air taxi.

Venus Bus Service operates to Sarteneja from Belize City (Magazine Road, tel. 227-3354) at 1 p.m., passing through Orange Walk at 3 p.m. Departure for Belize City is at 4 a.m. Confirm schedules, and whether the road is passable, at the bus office.

Staying

Diana's Hotel, Carlos Cruz St., tel. 423-2084, near the sea, has ten basic rooms going for about $25 double with private bath, $20 with shared bath. To check for other accommodations, call the community telephone, 422-2154, or speak to the Venus Bus driver.

Blue Heron Cove, Lowry's Bight (P. O. Box 115, Corozal), is a five-room seaside guesthouse at the end of a branch of the Sarteneja road. It can also be reached by water from Corozal, six miles away. The rate is about $35 single/$45 double, and breakfast is available for an additional charge. A shed and hammocks are available for backpackers at under $10 with breakfast. Fishing can be arranged with local people. Call the community operator in Copper Bank at 422-2950 to leave a message.

A small excerpt from a communication from the owner:

"Blue Heron Cove is my retirement property., it consists of 317 acres of forest with about four acres cleared in lawns and being planted in fruit trees. There is a cement pier for sunning and three swings . . . The breeze flows almost constantly, sometimes with a lot of force. I have kites, badminton, Ping Pong, shuffleboard, croquet, canoes, etc., and dominoes and old jigsaw puzzles for rainy days, plus a lot of entertaining tales about Belize . . . We have lots of the birds that are listed in Peterson's Field Guide, and some that the Belize Audubon Society cannot identify . . .We have a trail through the forest to Cerros ruins . . . I have seven dogs and four cats"

Butterflies are at home in the lowlands and marshes near Sarteneja. The Shipstern Nature Reserve, a private operation, breeds and exports the insects for show and sale, on a 22,000-acre tract just southwest of Sarteneja, and seriously interested entomologists will find a visit worthwhile. The area is home to as many as 200 butterfly species, some of which live in the forest canopy, and face extinction when trees are cut.

Sponsored by the International Tropical Conservation Foundation of Switzerland, the Shipstern reserve includes Belize's only protected seasonally dry forest, as well as mangroves and salt lagoons. The forest is still growing back after being flattened by Hurricane Janet almost 40 years ago. Migrating birds from the north frequent Shipstern Lagoon. Prized visual catches include the black catbird, white-winged dove and Yucatan jay. Tapirs, white-tailed and brocket deer, ocelots and even jaguars wander the savanna.

Visiting the Reserve

Best viewing is on sunny days. Trails lead from the reception building through three types of hardwood forest, with trees labeled with Latin and local names. It's easiest to take a day drive out this way from Orange Walk. Hours are 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m., closed on holidays. Tours cost about $5 per person.

FOUR MILES LAGOON, just off the road to the Mexican border, is a pleasant spot for a picnic and birding. The lakeside area is privately owned, and informal arrangements may be made for camping. Despite the name, the lagoon is about seven miles from Corozal, and four miles from no particular spot.

Santa Elena, on the Hondo River (Río Hondo), is the Belizean customs and immigration post at the international bridge, 95 miles (144 kilometers) from Belize City. The town across the bridge, in Mexico, is Subteniente López. Border posts on both sides of the river are open around the clock.

Mexican tourist cards can usually be obtained on the other side of the bridge upon showing credible identification, preferably a passport.

Money changers give a fair rate at the border for American cash, and a slightly less favorable rate for Belizean currency.

Visitors entering Belize at Santa Elena go through formalities in a matter of minutes. Caution for drivers: Vehicle insurance is available across the road from the immigration building on weekdays, and sometimes on Saturday mornings. Liability insurance is required, and officials will allow you to proceed at other times only with reluctance.

Aside from insurance and immigration and customs posts, there are no facilities of any kind except a couple of duty-free shops, and basic rooms and travel-trailer parking on the Mexican side.

Belizean bus companies provide onward service right into Chetumal, with a stop for immigration formalities.

Chetumal is not a Belizean City, but it might as well be. Since the improvement of the Northern Highway, bus connections between Chetumal and Belize have become virtually continuous, much to the dismay of Belizean economic planners, who see their countrymen take regular shopping trips across the border.

With duty-free status, Chetumal functions as the region's schlock shop, where Mexicans and Belizeans flock to pick up Taiwanese toys, Korean electronics, underwear from Singapore and Danish cookies, for much less than what they would cost in Belize or the interior of Mexico, if they were available. Belizeans are attracted as well by the comparatively low prices of basic foods and construction materials.

Chetumal lacks the fleshpots of Cancun. But if you want a break from the beaches and diving and rice and beans of Belize, and better shopping, it's an easy trip. You'll also pass this way if you travel to Belize by way of Cancun.

Getting There

The new bus terminal in Chetumal is three kilometers northwest of the center of town. A taxi will charge well under a dollar for the ride.

Northbound Batty departures from Belize City for Chetumal from Mosul St. at Bagdad (a block from East Collet Canal, tel. 227-2025) are hourly from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m., express bus at 6 a.m. Venus bus departures (tel. 227-3354) are from noon to 7 p.m. from Magazine Road and Logwood St., another three blocks west of the Batty terminal.

Taxis from Corozal take groups of persons to downtown Chetumal for only slightly more than what buses charges.

ORIENTATION

Héroes, which runs south to the Bay of Chetumal, is the main shopping street of Chetumal. Major hotels are located on Héroes, and on intersecting side streets, especially Obregón.

HOTELS

Prices are given in U.S. dollars, but are subject to dips and jumps, with the decline of the peso and compensatory inflation. A tax of 15% applies to all hotel and restaurant bills. Most hotels are in noisy areas.

Hotel Los Cocos, Av. Héroes at Chapultepec, tel. 20544. $90 single or double, tax included.

The best hotel in Chetumal, located downtown, in low-slung buildings on grassy grounds surrounding the swimming pool. Rooms are stuccoed, air-conditioned, with television and bar-refrigerators. An assortment of shops and services includes a travel agency.

Hotel Continental Caribe, Héroes 171, tel. 20441. $70 single/$85 double with tax.

Also on the main street, in a congested area opposite the main market. Surprisingly, the hotel is a pleasant oasis, oriented to an interior courtyard, with a swimming pool in cascading levels. Fine if you don't mind picture windows in your room facing outside passageways. Keep your curtains drawn.

Hotel Príncipe, Av. Héroes 326, tel. 25167. $40 single/$50 double.

Modern, in a residential area several blocks north of downtown, set back from the street, with sufficient parking. All rooms are air-conditioned, and the value is good if you have a car, though there is nothing of interest nearby.

Caribe Princess, Obregón 168, tel. 20900. $30 single/$40 double.

Fully air conditioned, of recent vintage, a good value if you don't need a pool.

Hotel Real Azteca, Belice 186. $25 single/$35 double.

A businessmen's hotel, a block west of the main street, and adjacent to the market. Air-conditioned.

Hotel Jacaranda, Obregón 201. $15 single/$25 double.

Just off the main street, modest, with failing air conditioning, the kind of place that looks run down even when new. Fairly clean, with an economical restaurant.

There are several other hotels in the vicinity of Obregón and Héroes, and others near the old bus station and market, at Héroes and Colón, near the Hotel Continental Caribe, with rates as low as $5 per person.

Since Chetumal is a shopping rather than a resort center, the accommodations can seem lacking for vacationers. But there are attractive places to stay not far away, including:

RESTAURANTS

The restaurant at the Hotel Continental Caribe has perhaps the nicest atmosphere of any eating place in town. You can sit on a terrace overlooking the water cascading down several levels of the pool, surrounded by jungly vegetation, or in an air-conditioned dining room with wicker furniture. Enchiladas and similar Mexican specialties, hamburger platters and club sandwiches go for go for $6-$7, Tampico-style steak and larger main courses $7 and up.

The menu at the Hotel Los Cocos includes some regional specialties, such as pibil (Yucatecan-style chicken) enchiladas at $8 for a plate. Main courses of Veracruz-style fish, steak and shrimp run to $15, and there's a daily special complete meal.

Sergio's Pizza, at Obregón 182, is more formal than most restaurants in Chetumal, aside from hotel dining rooms, and is air-conditioned, but service is exasperating, even by local standards. A small pizza or lasagne goes for $6, and the huge lemonades are refreshing.

The Supermercado y Restaurante Arcadas, at the corner of Héroes and Zaragoza, has kebabs and sandwiches in modern coffee-shop surroundings for $6. This could well be your one stop in Chetumal. There's a complete supermarket in back, and they're open 24 hours.

If this is the only part of Mexico you'll be touching, you'll probably want to soak up some local color while you eat. Walk down the main street toward the sea and turn left at Avenida 22 de Enero, facing the park. Just in front of you is the Restaurant Pérez Quintal, brightly lit and plain as only a Mexican zócalo café can be. Sit on the terrace or inside, and watch the scenes of town life unfolding before you: lovers holding hands, vendors hawking lottery tickets, an evening marimba or mariachi concert, a patriotic ceremony. $7 will buy a large plate of enchiladas and a couple of beers to wash them down.

For roast chicken to eat in or to go, head for Pollo Brujo, on the south side of Obregón, a block west of Héroes. About $10 for the whole bird.

And there other places for tacos and enchiladas, though fewer than you might expect downtown—squeezed out by duty-free shops.

AROUND CHETUMAL

Not all that long ago, Chetumal was a sleepy tropical port at an end of Mexico where few people ever went. Then came designation as a development area, and roads, and duty-free status, and modern Mexican concrete-block commercial and residential construction, with reinforcing bars sticking out, never looking completely built or completely decayed. Despite the peel and mold, most of what you will see in Chetumal has sprouted in the last 20 years. The old Chetumal hasn't been completely crowded out, however. The tropical port atmosphere is preserved in a number of brightly painted clapboard houses. Walk down to the lower end of the main street, and you'll end up at a lovely seaside park shaded by tall, leafy trees, opposite the colonnaded Palacio de Gobierno.

As a port, even with limited commerce because it is on a sea arm reached through Belizean waters, Chetumal is more cosmopolitan than many Mexican places. Most of the population is of indigenous descent, but African heritage is evident, and Lebanese and Syrian merchants have contributed to the town's growth, as you'll note from names such as Baroudi on storefronts.

With or without kids, if you have some time to spare, visit the Zoo (Zoológico Payo Obispo), along Avenida de los Insurgentes on the northern outskirts. Take the ISSSTE bus from behind the market on Avenida Héroes, or a taxi. Many a tropical city has a zoo that is more substantial and more fun than what we find in developed countries. This one is a jungle garden in a city of wide streets otherwise bare of needed shade, and many of the trees are labelled. Flamingoes, swans, geese, ducks and hippos are on display, but more interesting is the wildlife native to this part of Mexico and adjacent Belize: spider and howler monkeys, alligators, ocelots, jaguarundis, pacas (gibnut in Belize, or tepezcuintle), tapirs, peccaries, agoutis, and assorted snakes. This is one of the few places where you'll see a manatee up close, contentedly munching leaves in its pool. Who would guess that it's an endangered species? The park is adorned with reproductions of Mayan stelae and an Olmec head, and if you've got kids, you can let 'em loose in the large play areas. Maybe the choo-choo will be back in operation.

If you're driving, load up on groceries at the huge Blanco department-and-food store, adjacent to the bus terminal on Avenida Insurgentes. Juices, beer, and all kinds of packaged foods are far more economical than in Belize.

On from Chetumal

A taxi will charge well under a dollar for the ride to the bus terminal.

Venus Bus Lines departures for Belize City, passing through Corozal (air connections for Ambergris Caye) and Orange Walk, are every hour from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m.. Batty bus departures are every hour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and at 6:30 p.m. The 2 p.m. bus is an express, taking three hours instead of four to Belize City. Fare is about $4.

Belizean collective taxis bound for Corozal can sometimes be found loading passengers at the corner of Juárez (two blocks west of Héroes, the main street) and Cristóbal Colón.

MEXICAN CONNECTIONS:

Buses for Cancun and Merida leave every hour or two during the day, up to about midnight. You'll often find that the next bus out is full, so buy a ticket to reserve your seat as soon as you arrive. Fare to Cancun is about $6.
 
 

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