My travels in Belize

[cave paintings]

So I was volunteering then traveling in Belize for the past 7 weeks. Thought I'd share some pics!

First is a picture of a courtyard at Cahal Pech. This a Mayan ruin in NW Belize, very close to Guatemala. A very cool site, though hard to measure up to the pyramids and temples of larger sites.

Second are two pictures from Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary and Jaguar Preserve. Ate some LSD and hiked with the younger brother all day. Never saw a jaguar.. but fairly sure we heard one quite close to us, though it remained out of sight. The swimming hole was called Tiger Fern waterfall.

Next is a picture from Nim Li Punit, a Mayan site in Southern Belize. Very quiet that day, but got to hang with one of the archaeologists that had excavated the site for many years and listen. Nim Li Punit is similar to Cahal Pech in the humbleness of the remaining ruins, as no pyramids or temples were erected.. though fascinating history nonetheless.

Next is a picture of Xunantunich, one of the most impressive Mayan sites. This place had lots of power to it.

Next is a picture of a caye somewhere off the coast of Placencia.

Last is a picture of some of the glyphs from Xunantunich.

 

[cave paintings]

A picture from the beautiful and sleepy village of Sarteneja. A place also of much stress and pain as my arm became quite seriously infected from some sort of bug bite. Roughed out a few days there without adequate medical care, started getting a fever and decided it might be about time to hit the road back to the states.

A picture of a very cool Anuran from the Cockscomb Wildlife Sanctuary.

A picture of Tikal.

 

[anrchy]

Awesome!

I took a trip to Belize a couple weeks after 9/11. Prices were real cheap. I never got to see the places you show but had a ton of fun. On northern highway there's a bar called "chinos barefoot bar" the floor is white sand and I got to spend some time with Chino. He's a real cool guy, and he took us to ambergris where he lives and got us stoned and fed us a lobster dinner!

I'm actually trying to figure out my next trip, which I have a ton of plans of things I would like to do that I was unable to accomplish last time around. Thanks for sharing.

 

[cave paintings]

Hey! Very cool man. Lobster season just opened while I was down there so I got to attend the lobsterfest in Placencia. Also in Placencia I met some friends who also happened to be tour guides, so they took me out to the cayes for almost no money, caught us some fish and lobster while snorkeling, and had blunts and lunch on that island I posted a picture of. Real beautiful place.
I don't remember seeing that bar off the northern hwy though, sounds like I missed out.
Let me know if you want any tips or have any questions regarding places to stay/things to do. I literally covered the country north to south, east-to-west, which is not hard to do with how small it is.

I stayed for a month interning on an organic cacao farm with a family of Kekchi Mayans in the south near Punta Gorda. After.. I went:
Punta Gorda > Placencia> Cockscomb Basin > San Ignacio (where you can go to Xunantunich/Tikal easily, as well as caves like Actun Tunichil Muknal which is amazing) > Orange walk > Sarteneja > San Pedro > Belize city

 

[anrchy]

I wanna say that the bar was not too far from Belize city but it was a long time ago. It might have been closer to orangewalk though. I'll post a picture when I get home.

When we landed we went to Belmopan, then we ended up at some kind of zoo near there. iirc it didn't seem like the animals were taken care of that great but they had a LOT of different animals I had never seen IRL before. We ended up driving up to orange walk, stopping by that bar first. We stayed at an awesome hotel in orange walk where I got to experience the carribean style rain for the first time. Like taking a shower!

After going to ambergris with chino we drive to cancun, which we were told not to take the rental to Mexico. After leaving cancun we stayed at a condo somewhere along tht main road coming from cancun. Did some awesome snorkeling, my first time. We had trouble finding any Mayan ruins but were able to find one. But my next time going I will def check out the better ones.

The boat ride out to ambergris was awesome. Belize really is an amazing country that I recommend visiting.

 

[Ice House]

I just now saw these, very nice! Belize and Guatemala especially Tikal, so powerful so special. Amazing energy there. Thanks for sharing.

IH

 

[proto-pax]

Really nice pics. I'd like to visit some day.

 

[proto-pax]

Really nice pics. I'd like to visit some day.

 

[adam]

I like those ruins! I would love to vape some dmt there8)

 

[nen888]

..looks amazing! cave paintings..thank you..
did you spot any interesting plants there?

 

[cave paintings]

Oh yes nen! Many many interesting plants. So much indigenous knowledge too, really amazing how resourceful the people are.. like the Cohune palm, the inner core is food, oils, thatched roof shelter from fronds.. fibers etc.
One cool thing I observed too while down there was the use of extracts of Madre de Cacao or Gliricidia sepium as a natural pesticide/fungicide. I believe just a cold water soak was performed and this would be sprayed over crops like kidney beans or cacao. Cacao often grows in close association with this legume.

A quick wikipedia on it just now returned some cool info.
"G. sepium is also used for its medicinal and insect repellent properties. Farmers in Latin America often wash their livestock with a paste made of crushed G. sepium leaves to ward off torsalos. In the Philippines, the extract obtained from its leaves is used to remove external parasites.[2]
According to World Agroforestry Centre, this species is becoming an important part of farming practices in Africa. G. sepium has a combination of desirable properties. Because it fixes nitrogen in the soil, it boosts crop yields significantly without the expense of chemical fertilizers. In addition, it is tolerable of being cut back to crop height year after year. The trees go into a dormant state when they are cut back, so the root system is not competing straight away for the nutrients, and the crop is free to become established. The trees only really start to come out out of the dormant phase when the crop is already tall.[6] "

Anyhow, their were also seemingly innumerable Mimosas/Acacias about that left me dizzied after a while. I am quite sure tenuiflora was around but I arrived at the tail end of their flowering period and never spotted the flower spikes, and the pods I found were generally too large. I took some notes and did some drawings one day out and about, did some research with very patchy internet and figured that one of the species was certainly Mimosa pigra, with some pudica around and glomerosa. No experiments performed unfortunately haha. And really not enough pictures!! I'm not sure why I didn't take more. I'll post what I have of a few plants and some more wildlife.

First is a shot of the prolific A.cornigera. I'm not sure if it was mentioned elsewhere here, but I read that the root and ants are used to slow the progression of a snake bite. An herbalism doctrine underlies this remedy apparently that suggests that because the thorns look like snake fangs, the plant should be useful in healing it.

Second a cacao pod about to be cracked open.

Third a fern that covered the upper altitudes of Cockscomb that I really liked.

A purple fan coral found on the beach.

A cool shot of a tree that I've embarassingly forgot the name of.

Leaf cutter ants.

 

[Mitakuye Oyasin]

Nice images. Leafcutter ants are amazing to watch. I was in Costa Rica years ago and watched this local man hand select the largest ones he could find and place them into a small plastic bottle. Once he had about 50 of them he added 90% iso alcohol and shook it up for a few minutes then filter through a screen to get out the ants and dirt. He then bottled up the remaining liquid and placed a small amount in the palm of one hand, then proceeded to rub the liquid into both hands and especially his fingers. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that the ants secrete a chemical that really helped his arthritis. I asked him how old he was, as he looked to be in his 40's and in good physical health. He told me he was 67 and started doing this 10 years ago and it has helped his arthritis from progressing as well as taking away most of the pain. Jungle medicine.

 

[cave paintings]

Very cool, I'll have to head south once my joints start gettin rusty! The number of remedies really is amazing though. When over there, I was doing some digging/planting and got a serious heat rash all under my arm pits and torso. The locals picked some sort of mint that I crushed the leaves of and rubbed all over the rash, which I had scratched lightly before to 'open' it. The rash almost disappeared by the time I was headed to sleep.
Certainly I've never found anything as efficacious as Aloe vera in relieving sunburn. I was also told of Aloe's soothing property on insect bites, which I utilized frequently.

 

[cosmic butterfly]

beautiful pics mate, takes me back to one of the most special n magical places , thnks for sharing

 

[nen888]

..thanks for the great info cave paintings..nice A. conigera shot..

i always have aloe on hand in case of burns..
.