The circus has been in town for about 3 weeks now so almost everyone in the group went except me. The stories I heard from them were enough to know I made the right decision by not going. I was told it started out with acrobats, followed by a camel that was made to walk on its knees around the circle and a tiger that jumped through a hoop of fire. There were also lions backstage, but they were never actually in the circus. There was a rumor flying around that the circus was giving people $25 for every stray dog someone brought to feed to the lions. I’m pretty sure it is just a rumor, but it made me feel really uneasy about the circus.
The best part of the circus was when the Guatemalan clowns took a volunteer from the audience. Tommy, one of the international students studying at Galen with us, was chosen and went down to the ring. They then proceeded to put a bag over his head and handcuff his hands to a door. The stunt was to pretend to throw knives at Tommy into the door, while a guy behind the door actually just stuck the knives in himself and no knives were thrown. The last part of the stunt involved sticking a knife into a balloon that was placed between Tommy’s legs. However, when the guy behind the door went to do so, he missed the balloon and the knife swiped Tommy in his leg. Some blood could be seen, so the clowns took him offstage still handcuffed to the door. Tommy came back into the audience about 15 minutes later with a huge gash in his leg. The cut from the knife was a lot larger than the audience could see. After sitting in the audience for about 5 minutes, Tommy decided to go get some real medical attention. We found out later that weekend that he needed several stitches and was trying to sue the circus.
The end of the circus was even stranger. Mickey and Minnie Mouse came out and started slow dancing in the center of the ring. Other Disney characters also emerged.
That Monday, my ecotourism exam was moved to the following Monday, I took my Tropical Rainforest exam, and gave a group presentation on development. The next day I gave a presentation on my progress thus far for our service-learning project. Both presentations went well and I think the exam also went well.
Friday morning I woke up at 8 to sign up for horse-back riding for Saturday and then just hung out getting work done until around 7 when Twilight was playing at the only movie theater in Cayo, and probably only one of two total in Belize. Twilight was definitely one of the strangest movies I have ever seen, but the movie theater was pretty nice with leather seats and stadium seating. It’s only $4 to get in and if you have a group of 10 or more, its only $20 total for everyone. It was like a little taste of home for the night.
Saturday I woke up at 8 to get ready for horse-back riding at 9. I went with Katie, Katherine, and Andrew. Only Katie and I knew how to ride, while Katherine had only been on a horse a few times and Andrew had never been on a horse before. It was $60 BZ ($30 U.S) to ride and they paid for transportation to the place and back. We were picked up by a taxi and driven about 10 minutes outside of town to Easy Rider, the place that runs the tours. We were then given a crash lesson on balance and riding in general and signed some papers saying we cannot sue the place if something were to happen. She also gave us hats and bike helmets to wear. My bike helmet was too large for my head and every time my horse got into a fast trot, it would hit me really hard, so I tried posting for a while even though it was western saddle.
Riding in the rainforest
After our crash course, the woman assigned us horses. My horse’s name was Niña, meaning girl in Spanish. She was white with tiny spots of black on her. She ended up being the slowest walker in the group and I was constantly behind the rest of the group, but that allowed me to have more time trotting and cantering to catch up to the group. The woman took us into the rainforest on a tiny trail with lots of hills. I do not know how old my horse was, but she was definitely having difficulty getting up some of the hills and was out of breath every time. I tried to stand up and take weight off of her back for a while to see if that would help. She also had a bit of an attitude problem when first starting out and with the other horses, but the worst she did was back up, turn around and make a fuss. As long as she didn’t buck I didn’t mind.
As we were on the trail, the woman was telling us stories about the maya, since we were right behind Cahal Pech and what all the plants that we were passing were. About halfway into the forest, we stopped, got off our horses, tied them to trees, and she talked to us more about the Maya and the sacrifices they made. She then took us to a cave/tunnel where excavations have been done and they found a tomb there. There was also a pile of dirt in the cave with pieces of ceramics still buried in it and alongside the walls. Andrew found a piece and gave it to me to hold on to, so now I have a little ancient artifact from the Maya world.
In the cave
After the cave, we got back on our horses and got to trot and canter back to the campsite. When we got off, we then fed our horses a banana each and the woman drove us home. Andrew is allergic to many plants and animals so before horse-back riding, he took some allergy medication. Apparently he didn’t take enough and by the end of riding, he couldn’t really breathe fully and couldn’t wait to come back and shower. When we got back we discovered the Inn had no water whatsoever and we couldn’t shower, wash the horse smell off our hands, or do anything of the sort.
After realizing this, Andrew and I decided to go down to the river to wash off and cool down. We went to a spot about 20 minutes away where there’s a rock you can jump off of. To get there, you have to cut through and make your own trail in the 5 feet high grass. There was also a separation of land in the middle made of dirt that was quite steep. Once we got to the river, there were some Belizeans already there swimming. We stuck around and swam for about 15 minutes then decided to head back because dark clouds were approaching.
As soon as I got out and started drying off, it started to drizzle. About 5 minutes later, it was pouring. I thought this was supposed to be the dry season! Of course I wore my jelly-like flip-flops, the most slippery pair I own and definitely not good in the rain. All the dirt turned into mud in minutes and I was dirtier than before going to the river. Of course by the time we made it into town it had stopped raining, but there was still no sun in sight. We got back to the Inn and still had no water and since I was soaking wet and filthy, I didn’t want to enter my room. Instead, I sat on my porch for about 2 hours trying to dry off and wait while some of the staff here was hammering at the pipe to fix the water. They originally told us it would be back in 15 minutes, but it took about 3 hours in reality.
Andrew and I had gone to costless the day before and splurged on a 72 oz bag of chocolate chips for $30, so while waiting to dry we made ourselves some peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie snacks. It definitely made my day about 5x better having chocolate and peanut better, two of my favorite things. We then watched Enchanted, since it was on tv. By the time the movie ended, the water was finally back on and I could shower. For the rest of the night, I just hung out and went to bed early.
Sunday morning I woke up at 8 again to go to Xunantunich, another Maya ruin site. The biggest temple there is known as Clay Mountain or Castillo (str. A-6) and is the second tallest ruin in Belize (Caana at Caracol being the largest). We were picked up by our professor Dr. Jaime Awe, Chris’s dad, and half of us rode in the back of his pick-up truck. We do that a lot here…ride in the back of people’s trucks. It’s not illegal here and pretty much everyone does it. It’s just weird that we’re allowed to get in our professors’ trucks but not in the car with our program leaders.
Castillo
View from the top of Castillo
On the ride back, it started raining on us, so everyone in the back of the truck got wet. We were all starving, so Jaime dropped us off at Hannah’s Restaurant and we ate there, even though the power was still out and it took a long time for our food to be ready. I then came back and took a 2 hour nap, watched chick flicks with my roommates and then studied for my ecotourism exam tomorrow.
Being Sun Gods on Castillo
The internet and electricity have been very poor lately and we pretty much lose power at least once a day. My computer battery officially died, so now my laptop only works if it’s plugged into the wall, which is fine, I just can’t do work outside anymore. I’m going to wait to buy a new battery because I don’t trust buying one here. I’m also starting to freak out a little bit about how little time I have left here. We only have about 5 weeks left and there’s still so much I want to see and do before leaving and definitely not enough time to do so. I guess that means I’ll just have to come back to Belize again!
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