Lamanai

Today we finally went to see some Mayan ruins! We found out that the Copper Horse Inn offers a tour to Lamanai for $65 U.S. per person. They drove us to Orange Walk, which is about an hour drive from Corozal Town. From there we took a tour of the New River and saw Spider Monkeys (see above picture). The guide stopped so we could maybe give the Spider Monkeys a snack. These monkeys are very used to people, and getting snacks from them, so when the boat was close enough one of them just jumped in and walked down the aisle waiting for someone to hand her a snack. The guides usually take bananas, but they forgot them, so he asked if we had cookies or anything to give the monkeys. One guy said he has cookies, and as soon as the monkey heard the zipper to the back-back she went over there to see what he had. I normally don’t agree with feeding wild animals, but I can definitely see why they do it. It made for a really cool experience! Once we got to the Mayan site they fed us lunch before we hiked up to the Mask Temple (see picture below). The High Temple was our next venture. As I’m sure you can tell by the name, this temple is higher and steeper, but once you get to the top…the view is absolutely amazing! I’ve never been that high before (outside an airplane) so I wasn’t sure if I was afraid of heights. I decided to be cautious about it and not look down until I finished climbing to the top. The view was so beautiful and so worth the climb, the fear of heights didn’t even enter my mind. Contrary to what I thought, it was so much easier going down than it was going up. I just stepped sideways the whole way down, and switched sides every 20 steps to get an equal work out on both legs. :0) We also got to see Howler Monkeys, and wow they sound so cool! There were a couple of babies there and they were adorable! The last temple we saw was the Jaguar Temple; we were not allowed to climb that one, but the whole area was really beautiful! I recommend this tour for anyone who hasn’t given it a try. Now I have to talk my husband into taking me to Tikal in Guatemala. It was a Mayan capital and is huge, and from what I hear you can also camp out there and take a sunrise and sunset tour! I can’t wait!