Whack!

The restaurant’s proprietor, a voluptuous lady in a sweat-stained dress, had stormed out of the kitchen and swiped the little bat out of midair with a wet towel — no different than a common housefly. And just as I had begun to enjoy its fluttery dance around the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling to boot.

She picked up the limp body by one of the broken wings, and chucked it out an open window.

Turning toward us with a reassuring smile, she declared that it was safe to continue dinner. So we returned our attention to the rice and beans.

Less than two hours in the country, we were already getting our first impressions — simple cuisine, no patience for wildlife.

Welcome to Belize!

The following morning we learned that cuisine and wildlife also go together in Belize, when two dirt-encrusted children, no more than 10-years-old, tried to sell us an iguana for the pot.

The animal was still alive, its feet tied with its own tendons.

Lamanai, boat tours and garbled guides, oh my!

After a quick breakfast of rice and beans, we left the small village of Crooked Tree and headed north towards the New River.

Boat tours to Lamanai leave daily from the bridge where the Northern Highway crosses the stream. The New River, winding through swamplands, passes isolated farms and even a Mennonite Community! (Yes, there were several men standing along the river, broad brimmed hats, suspenders, long-sleeved shirts — the women, I assumed, were behind the houses churning butter.)

The river provides the easiest way to access the remote Mayan ruins of Lamanai, unless you just love long hauls on dusty roads. It also offers good chances to see some wildlife, like tiny tent bats (alive, mind you), endangered Morelet’s crocodiles and graceful snail kites.

The boat trip, lasting about two hours, is as interesting as the ruins themselves, and not just because of the specimen outside the craft.

A large man, with a floppy hat and safari vest, barged onto our boat, plopped into the captain’s chair and demanded with a thick German accent, “I wants to see a jaguar”.

The guide looked concerned. Unfazed, the man said, “At leasts a puma then."

Lamanai, meaning submerged crocodile, sits along an expansive lagoon and is the third-largest archeological site in Belize. It was one of the longest occupied Mayan cities in Central America — about 3,000 years — and survived several major cultural shifts all the way to the arrival of the Spanish.

The guided walk led past the Mask Temple to the Temple of the Jaguar. We saw howler monkeys, happily defecating in the trees, and minute black orchids, the national flower of Belize.

Our eager guide started every sentence with “matter of fact”, which, garbled by a heavy accent sounded a lot like “motherfuck” — it caught me off-guard until the very end.

At the conclusion of the tour, we climbed the High Temple and gawked at whorls of rainforest twisting towards the horizon. The nearby wooded hills were temples yet to be excavated — it was hilly country.

But at least the boat ride back was jaguar and puma free.

The ghosts of Mayans past

Near the town of San Ignacio in western Belize lies the small, but nevertheless impressive, ruins of Xunantunich, or Stone Woman.

While there are not many temples, from El Castillo — currently Belize’s second tallest structure — the view right into Guatemala is breathtaking. We easily reached the ruins by hand-cranked ferry across the Mopan River, and a sweaty hike to the top of a ridge got us to the main plaza.

Between the few temples sits one of the best preserved stelae in all of Belize. Steles are pillars made of stone or wood used for commemorative or funereal purposes.

Above, enormous black and white king vultures drew circles in a cloudless sky.

Legend has it that on a moonless night, a female figure, wearing pure white garb, has been seen ascending the steep stairs of El Castillo and suddenly merging with the wall near the top.

We left before nightfall.

Do it right and sneak out of town

The busy border town of San Ignacio is also the gateway to Belize’s largest archeological site, the ruins of Caracol ("snail"), hidden deep in the Chiquibul National Park.

While several tour companies offer trips to the ruins, it is a lot more rewarding to visit on one’s own pace.

After a sleepless night in one of San Ignacio’s noisy hotels, we hired the cheapest four-wheel vehicle we could find, a rusty Isuzu Trooper. We had to use all our might to shut the doors, but the 4x4 light lit up promisingly. The vehicle steered wobbly along the pavement sneaking out of town, but felt a lot more secure on the potholed gravel leading into the Pine Ridge Mountains.

Caracol lies only 50 miles to the south of town, but since the track winds over the mountains and drops into jungle, past several waterfalls and inviting swimming holes, we decided to take our time.

The drive through the Pine Ridge Mountains comes as a bit of a shock. The once rich forest of Caribbean pines has been decimated by beetles. In many areas, only dry trunks are left standing above shrubby regrowth.

The forest around the major landmarks has been saved, though, offering a chance to see what the natural habitat looked like before the pine beetle infestation.

Being there, beetle free

On the first day, we drove to Douglas de Silva Forestry Camp, where we set up shop for the night in a broad, open area of grass and scattered, beetle-free Caribbean pine. There was plenty of space to choose from, as we were the only campers.

After setting up our tent, we explored the Rio Frio Cave, where an underground river has drilled a deep, natural arch through the soft limestone. A quick swim was a relief from the heat and humidity.

The following morning, we started right after a misty sunrise. Surprisingly, after a few miles of dirt road, smooth pavement appeared — and by now, the road to Caracol must be paved.

On both sides of the road, primary rainforest pressed in close, until a large clearing and the entrance area to the ruins appeared.

Archeology in action

Caracol was one of the largest Mayan sites in all of Central America, encompassing an urban area seven miles around the epicenter, including up to 140,000 inhabitants.

For hundreds of years, jungle had claimed the remains of the city, until the ruins were discovered by chance in 1937. Excavations began in the 1950s, and in earnest in the 1980s.

Over the decades, researchers have discovered Caracol to be even larger than previously thought and of more significance.

While many temples and structures have been restored, the majority of the site still lies beneath tangles of roots, rotting leaves and dense jungle. We wandered around the site for hours ,and several trails lead past mounds covered in impenetrable vegetation with just a few carved rocks poking out.

Caracol invites the imagination, it offers the chance to study rebuilt temples and see what the ruins looked like when rediscovered. It is also a great place to see archeology in action, as there is an active research camp during the dry season.

At 140 feet above the forest, Caana ("sky temple") is the largest structure in Belize. A hot climb up the impossibly steep stairs (didn’t Mayas have short legs?) revealed the archeological work in progress — only a small fraction has been excavated.

Of the 35,000 structures identified, only a few have been restored, but these include several major temples, an observatory, plazas, and ball courts.

What to do when you're all ruin-ed out

Should you tire of Mayan ruins, another great way to explore the fascinating culture is a trip to one of several caves found in the region.

These natural caves were used by the Mayas for food storage, rituals, and burials. The best examples include Barton Creek Cave, Actun Tunichil Muknal, and Che Chem Ha, all near San Ignacio.

In the south of Belize, there are many Mayan villages tugged into the rainforest, and with a sense of adventure, it is possible to visit.

We drove for several hours along confusing dirt roads in the Toledo District, until discovering an inviting looking river near a small village.

While packing for a quick hike, several small children came streaming from nearby houses. I figured they don’t see tourists every day.

They quickly surrounded us with outstretched hands, crying, “Take picture for dollar."

Editor's note: This is the first story in a three-part series on Stephan Lorenz's Belize adventures. Look for part two next weekend.