Day 6 - Lamanai Mayan Ruins

I woke up this morning, exhausted from the last few days that had passed.  Island time is so much different than time in Iowa.  I was drained, but I was really excited for the day ahead.

We started off with a speedboat ride of about an hour and a half back to the mainland.  From there, an hour bus ride.  Then?  Another boat ride.  This one was different though.  This one had a surprise.  The surprise?  SPIDER MONKEYS!  One of them actually got on our boat and hung out with us for a while.  It was really awesome.  Definitely not something you'd see every day.  The monkey stood up on his hind legs and we were informed that it's because he's used to watching humans do it.  If we had gone deeper into the rainforest where humans do not generally visit, they would be on all 4 legs.  That really stood out to me as a teacher, because I related that to how your students learn from watching you.  As an educator, you have to be a role model at all times.

Finally we were at Lamanai -- The Mayan Ruins.

We had to hike a little bit to get to the ruins, but we learned about the trees and wildlife on the way, so it wasn't too terrible.  It was just extremely hot and I was already sunburnt.

The first ruin was really cool to look at.  I've never seen anything quite so important to history before.  When taking pictures it occurred to me that I could have just looked these up online, so naturally I stuck myself in the picture. =)

As we headed over to the next temple, we were told we were going to get a chance to climb it.  Instead of getting scared, I got SUPER excited.  Then we got to the temple and I looked up.  112 feet above me was the top of this temple.  I heard the tour guide tell us that if we had any knee or back problems, it's advised not to climb.  I have both, but I knew they weren't bad enough to stop me from this once in a lifetime experience.  (And don't worry, I wasn't hurting at all afterwards).  So I took off climbing.  There were 3 levels.  The first, really tall stairs.  And I'm a pretty short person, so it was a struggle.  The second set of stairs were really tall and also really skinny.  We had to crawl up on all fours in order to stay on the stairs and there was also a rope to hold on to, just in case.  After this climb, I was starting to get tired, but I was too close to the top to give up now.  One more set of stairs and I was literally on top of the trees, on top of the world.  It was one of the most breathtaking views I've ever seen in my life.  Definitely worth the tall, hard climb in the heat. 

This was such a great experience and if you ever make it to Belize, I HIGHLY recommend checking out the ruins.  I'm not a huge fan of history, but this was really unique and fun.  Plus, I learned how to say "I love you" in Mayan.