Traveling Applejax

We finished up our Mexico travels on July 10th. We got up earlier than we usually do when we have a comfy bed to sleep on and left Hotel Ucum (teehee) to explore the Museo de la Cultura Maya in Chetumal. Lucky for us the exhibits were labeled in English as well as Spanish, so we didn’t have to do much guess work. It was a nice little museum with a few interesting facts about Mayan culture. My favorite tid-bits of info: 1) the men often pierced their penises with stingray bones and 2) Mayans purposefully deformed their children for aesthetic purposes. It was cool to be cross-eyed in Mayan culture, so they hung a ball between the kids’ eyes until they stayed that way. Also, they strapped elaborate wooden presses around the kids’ heads shortly after birth to flatten and elongate them. Ouch!

Hotel Ucum

After checking out the museum we biked to the border and beyond into Belize. It was a very easy border crossing — especially since most people speak some English in Belize, and it is many people’s first language. This makes traveling a little easier on us. We only biked a short distance and stayed in a town called Corozal. There was a nice guest house and we talked to some fellow travelers for a bit. We also ran into an ex-pat pot-luck party on our way into town, and they invited us to fill up a couple of plates. Also, there are a lot of interesting characters talking Kriol in Belize, and a bit more Sean Paul playing on the “Riddim” radio station than we heard in Mexico.

Today we biked to Orange Walk, with only a few notable occurrences:
1. This route is apparently the sugarcane highway. Lots of trucks full to the brim passed us between the fields and the factories.
2. We were almost hit by a tire running away from the truck it had formerly been attached to. Just fell right off as it was driving down the road. Oops.
3. Mike opened a much anticipated cup-o-noodles (he really likes eating cold ramen on the road for some reason) only to find it filled with bugs. Naturally, he squealed like a girl and threw the cup at me. He tried to get another, but the same thing happened. No noodles for Mike.

In the next couple of days we will head to a wildlife preserve and then on to Belize City and Caye Caulker . . . or something like that. Here are some pics for now.

Lake Bacalar — the site of our fantastic pit stop on the way to Chetumal

It’s also called the lake of seven colors. Can you see them all?

The house on the lake…

…and the gazebo where we quenched our thirst.

Crazy grasshopper

Mrs. Papa. Sexy, eh?

Baby parrots. The guest house in Corozal had them.