This is a very large-scale, labor-intensive project; I was thoroughly impressed. (I was thoroughly impressed by an awful lot of what I saw during this trip.)
Thence back to Pook's Hill in the evening for dinner and a chance to relax, which I very much needed. I managed to turn my notes for the day into journal entries; there was so much going on every day that finding time for that necessary task was frequently difficult.
* * *
We got up early in the morning of July 17 for another look at the birds of Pook's Hill before we left. I'd seen keel-billed toucans silhouetted in flight the afternoon we arrived in Belize, but this morning we got good views of them in all their size and color. They're the national bird of Belize—and a good choice therefor among many striking alternatives.
We went by bus to our second significant Mayan site, Xunantunich. On the way we paused in San Ignacio, the second city of Belize. The houses again reminded me of older dwellings in Brunswick County, NC, where we go to the beach every summer: smallish, generally shabby, often on stilts against flooding during hurricanes, and frequently brightly colored. There were many Internet cafes, many travel bureaus, and many shops with tourist wares.
The road passed two cemeteries here and another at San Jose Succotz. The graves in the region are mostly above ground because of the high water table. The stones and slabs are generally painted in bright pastels. The look and feel of these cemeteries is quite different from those of the parts of the U.S. where I've visited cemeteries.
At Succotz there's a hand-worked ferry (the operator cranks his raft along a cable) crossing a tributary of the Belize River to get to Xunantunich. There are three very large green iguanas (one was over 5 feet long) wandering around the ferry site; none of our group fed them, but I presume there's some reason they live in this location.
The raft wouldn't take the weight of the Coaster, so we loaded onto one of a pair of old blue Ford vans (the other passed us going the other way) that carry tourists to the site a mile upslope. The ride was hot (there was a little fan whirring in the back, but most of the windows didn't open), cramped, and extremely rough, but it sure beat walking.
Xunantunich was built to tax river traffic during the Classic period; it had only about 7–10 thousand people (as opposed to Tikal, one of some thirty known Mayan sites which probably had some 175 thousand residents at their peak). It's relatively small, so you can get a feel for the whole site from the restored pyramids unlike Lamanai and particularly Tikal.
During the late '70s while Belize was still British Honduras, the brutal military dictatorship in Guatemala threatened to take over the country by force. The British moved in troops and aircraft. Xunantunich became a British army observation post with concrete stairs to the top. Not surprisingly there's been earthquake damage since then.
One of the mounds visible from the main pyramid is cratered. An archeologist blew it open with dynamite and announced that there was nothing inside . . . which was certainly true after he got done with it. Any Iowa farmer with an Indian mound on his property could've told him that's not how you find burials and grave goods. (I'm not saying I condone the practice; just that my in-laws used dynamite for stumping, not grave robbing.)
We drove from Succotz to the Guatemalan border, where there was considerable bureaucracy and (especially since I'm slightly agoraphobic) discomfort. I read a book as I stood in line with a great crowd of other people, waiting for petty officials to stamp forms and take money. (Belize and Guatemala charge people who are leaving the country, $20 and $30 per head, respectively.) I found the whole business unpleasant and—it seemed to me—unnecessary.
Thence back on the bus and a long drive to Tikal. The road is now quite good, becoming paved a few miles from the border. Apparently the road had been awful but the complaints of tour operators forced the government to act—though I gather "act" in this case means spend aid money on construction instead of using it to line the pockets of officials. The aid ran out a distance short of the border, but the gravel portion is drivable.
A line of poles—like telephone poles but without wires—parallels the road. Jo later learned the poles were set up to prevent people from landing light planes on the concrete highway. There's very little traffic, even less than in Belize.
Jonathan noticed that we were being followed by a blue Toyota pickup with two men in it. I asked Edd, who said with obvious embarrassment, "They're friends." It appears that IE provides armed guards for its groups while they're in Guatemala, but they want to keep the fact quiet so as not to spook clients. The trucks carrying cases of Pepsi and Coca-Cola also have armed guards: anyone in the country with cash has to be guarded, because thirteen families control all Guatemala's wealth. Grinding poverty turns most of the population into potential bandits.