Belize Jungle Adventure
June 3, 2010
(read the full post here)
After over five months crossing Mexico, it was finally time to move on. So I bid farewell to my dark, dingy hotel in the border town of Chetumal and waved goodbye to my pimp/pusher neighbour, turning down one final, hopeful, hushed offer of ‘blow? weed?’
I was keen to ride off pavement again in Belize, having been inspired by a cycling couple’s dirt road adventures there six months ago. The fact that the rainy season has now begun wasn’t ideal, but I figured it was worth a try.
Luckily the three day traverse to the Guatemalan border turned out really well. It was a tough, remote ride. Once I’d passed boistrous Orange Walk Town, it was almost 100% dirt roads, passing through Mennonite communities, Mayan ruins and dense jungle, before emerging across a rope string bridge into colourful San Ignacio, 10 miles from the border with Guatemala.
Beware, leaf cutter ants crossing. These guys mean business too; they’ll happily snip through the ground sheet of a tent. I used to co-run a bike touring business in the Indian Himalayas. One of our drivers, Phunchok, a devout buddhist, always stopped to let animals and insects out of the way. I wonder what he would have handled this kind of road block.
This northern area of Belize has several sizeable Mennonite communities - protestants who trace their origins to a Swiss brethren from 1525. Some are more traditional than others. While those around Spanish Lookout have embraced such modern indulgences as pickup trucks, big windows (previously seen as 'otherwordly') and the internet, many continue to travel in horse and carts, wearing their distinctive uniform of dungarees, check shirts and sombreros. As you can imagine, there's a strong sense of community. For instance, when a couple is newlywed, they move into an old bus on a piece of land until they can afford their own house. Then everyone helps to build it by hand, which I saw as I past by the conservative settlement of Shipyard - like a scene from Peter Weir's Witness. Those I talked to spoke English in a German accent infused with a gentle Carribean lilt – it was like nothing I’d heard before. So close to the border, this young mennonite, David, spoke more Spanish than English, and from him I gleaned I was heading in the wrong direction. Again...
In fact, it was easy to get lost with all the farm tracks wending off in every direction. One of his neighbours, Jacob Harms, drew me what looked like a ‘stream of consciousness’ map on a Post It note. Jacob was sceptical I’d make it through the next part of the forest, so he invited me for dinner and a place to stay if I had to turn back. We chatted about what it is that draws people to travel so far from their homes. For Jacob, family life was all he could imagine wanting and he was genuinely curious about this nomadic cycling lifestyle.
The rainy season brings with it brooding skies.
and mud… At this point, my bike was completely immobile. I couldn’t even lift it; with all that mud clogging the frame and sticking to my boots, it felt like everything weighed twice as much as normal. Somehow, I shuffled on, painstakingly slowly. Note to self – fit a rigid fork with massive clearances and disc brakes for the raining season.
Sometimes it was clammy and overcast. At other times, the scorching sun dried out the mud, and the road was smooth and fast.
