The consensus is that, comparatively, Belise City is upscale. I mean, the streets are paved and the windows actually have glass in them. The girls are on horseback. I am seeing the Jungle by way of mountain bike. It’s similar to the trails back home accept that instead of root infestation one must be mindful of the soil embedded limestone rocks, which tend to hook your pedals. And of course, the trees are exotic and dense broad green everywhere. Once established the light darkens and the humidity ratchets. Our Creole guide says that each leaf and piece of bark is useful in someway. He tears one and an intense aroma emits. We all guess wrong. It’s allspice! But wait! There’s more. This one is a good remedy for diarrhea. That one doubles as heart medicine and pregnancy test (Yama bush). Then it makes sense. The local inhabitants don’t have a local CVS pharmacy on the corner that they can go to. They adapt and make use of their environment and do quite nicely without all of the conspicuous consumption that we have built in our world back home.

Just before we ride back to base camp and our awaiting lunch with refreshing river swim, we visit a very old cave system. As we wriggle and crawl deep inside we see limestone stalactites (rate of growth: 1/16 in/yr). The feeble flashlights that were distributed play eerie shadows, whipless scorpions and bats clinging death like in the overhead. We tease the squeamish and jokingly warn that the light beams will cause them to take flight — likely dropping straight down into our hair. I add that these creatures are probably less toxic then the requisite safety bicycle helmets that have been passed from sweaty rider to the next 🙂 Adding to the mystique, the guide points out bits of broken clay pot on the dirt floor. In fact, low and behold we stumble upon one which is intact! He claims them to be from ancient Mayan civilization. I reckon them to be from the village lawn and garden supply! But they do have some limestone deposits already, so we ignore them as props and take delight in his history lesson and story telling. Exit: stage left. Tomorrow we sail to Cozumel.