Lamanai - March 21, 2008

Jungle Cruise to Lamanai

To get to Lamanai, a visitor has a couple of choices. You can drive over one of many unpaved, rutted roads that exist in Belize - this journey will take the visitor one or more hours and will be extremely uncomfortable. Or you can travel by boat along the New River. I choose a tour that traveled via river.

Te day was overcast - the picture above was taken near the departure dock which is just off the Northern Highway and, if you look closely enough, you will see raindrops on the surface of the water. The river trip took about an hour each way and we saw lots of wildlife along the way - birds, insects, crocodiles. The rain stopped soon after we arrived at Lamanai proper

Lamanai are the one of oldest, if not the oldest, Mayan ruins uncovered in Belize to date. They were settled more than 3000 years ago and most of the temples were built about 100 b.c.e. The ruins were still inhabited when the first Spaniards arrived in Belize in the 16th century. There are a lot of outside influences at Lamanai - one of the temples I saw showed Olmec or Toltec influences from what is now southern Mexico.

Once the Spanish arrived, the began the process of converting the Mayans at Lamanai to Christianity like the good little Spaniards they were. They even built the Mayans a church. The (ungrateful) Mayans, however, burned the church. I believe a second church was also built and suffered the same fate.

Disease decimated the Mayan populated and, when the British arrived in the 19th century, the Mayans at Lamanai were forced off the land (the guidebook says they went to Guatemala) so the land could be used to grow sugar.

Most of Lamanai is still covered by the jungle but some ruins have been excavated and are open to the public. Like most Mayan attractions in Belize, this means the public is free to climb and clamor about the ruins as they see fit. To visit the ruins which have been excavated, visitors must traipse through the humid and bug-filled jungle. Just a hint to readers out there who haven't figured this out yet - I don't do well in humid and I get bitten by bugs so I am not partial to either! On the trip through the jungle, we saw lots of active howler monkeys up in the tree canopy. They were fun to watch as the scrambled and swung from tree to tree. No pictures of the howler monkeys as they showed up on my pictures as dark blobs.

All of the excavated ruins at Lamanai have some very un-original identifiers - P9-56 (I believe this is the Jaguar temple, above), N10-43 (the High Temples and, no, Cathleen did not climb to the top).The Jaguar temple is called that because of a face resembling that of a Jaguar carved into its left side. You can kind of see it in the picture, above.

The High Temple is about 1/2 mile from the Jaguar Temple. Our group walked through the residential area that exists between the two temples to reach the High Temple. It is the largest structure at Lamanai.

You can climb that temple if that is your heart's desire - it was not mine as I don't like heights. Unlike at Caracol, there was a rope the climbers could use to help them with the stairs. The steps were in pretty good shape but steep.

From the High Temple, we hiked through the jungle over to the Temple of the Mask. On the outside of this temple is a "mask" (hence the name) that resembles Oltec or Toltec art. Visitors are not permitted to climb on this temple as it is very old.

Lamanai also has the requisite ball court and smaller buildings as well.

The tour itself took about 2-3 hours, after which the tour company served us lunch near the dock. At the dock are several buildings at which you can buy locally made souvenirs.

Excavation at Lamanai has not even come close to unearthing the ruins which exist under the jungle floor. Belize just doesn't have the money to excavate and maintain what they have excavated so most ruins remain hidden. This the same for other Mayan sites, such as Caracol and Xunantinich (near San Ignacio).

Residential Area (for the elite)

Flowers at Lamanai

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