Orange Walk & Lamanai

Today was our best day yet. Yesterday we successfully took the local bus to the northern end of Belize to a town called Orange Walk. Its a very small, busy little town. We are staying in our nicest (and cheapest) room yet and have been laughing because the small room has 2 bunk beds and another twin bed. It also has a TV with American cable. The bathrooms are shared but as far as we can tell, we arent sharing them with anyone. Its nice and clean and we are happy with it.

Today was our best day yet. Orange Walk's claim to fame is that it is located near the Lamanai ruins. It is a whole day tour and the ruins are only accessible from a 2 hour boat ride. On the boat ride to the ruins, we saw lots of crocodiles and iguanas. We rode past a Mennonite community...yes, there is a huge population of them here in Belize. The locals have great things to say about them, they are great mechanics, farmers and even dentists. Apparently they run the spectrum of full-on Amish using no modern technology to more progressive ones that drive trucks and cars. They are well loved here in this country. Then we headed to the ruins which were beautiful. We had our first encounter with mosquitoes (yuk) and even though it got pretty warm, I ended up wearing my jacket anyway to protect myself. Our guide was amazing and apparently is featured on the History Channel show Cities of the Underworld - the Mayan one. His name was Antonio if anyone happens to watch it. On the way back at the end of the day, we visited their monkey friend who hopped right on the boat to get some bananas. There is something about monkeys that turns even the toughest guys soft.

Tomorrow, we will head to San Ignacio which is supposed to be incredibly beautiful. I will post again as soon as possible.