Spaying's a Breeze When You're in Belize: Riding and paddling

Wednesday May 7, 2014

Got up early this am feeling much better. I will go out on the horses again… although, I told Giovanni and Rico that I may take the car back when we meet up.

I rode June again and we headed off into the jungle. We also rode alongside fields and streams and along gravel roads. It was beautiful.

a small Mennonite Church

The Mennonite farms are beautiful.

We also rode through a Mennonite community. Mennonites are a huge part of the agriculture here in Belize. There are 16 communities with a total population of about 25,000 people. (The total population of Belize is only about 350,000!). They have huge farms and provide a huge amount of the agricultural products to the people of Belize. There are different types of Mennonites: the old school, the Progressive (use machinery and have HUGE farms) and various mixes. The farms we passed are gorgeous. We also stopped at a working sawmill run on horse power. There are 8 horses, 2 abreast, harnesses to the driving wheel, they walk in circles to turn the drivewheel, which drives the train that powers then band saw! I got to see it working and wanted to take photos, but Mennonites do not want their pictures taken (and the men would have been in any shots I wanted) so I respected their wishes and did not take pictures. But it was really neat to watch.

These are the same cacti as seen growing on the trees (posted previous photo), so these are on braces to grow and the much sought after "dragon fruit" can be easily harvested.

We rode by more farms, through more streams and finally made it to the caves. Jackie and Gio and some other guests were already there. I have to admit, I was done riding. The hours in the relentless sun is more than this Pacific Northwesterner can handle! It would take quite a while for me to acclimate to this weather. I will have to seriously think about anymore riding. Darn.

We returned to the Mennonite sawmill. No men working so it was ok to take photos. You just have to imagine the 8 horses hitched to the turn wheel.

The saw part of the mill.

A footbridge to use if the roadway water gets too deep to cross.

Jackie and Stacy with Giovanni, ready to go into the cave. Hey! Where is Woofie??

So, I joined the group for the cave tour. We got into canoes, carried some strong lights and paddled into the cave! It was absolutely amazing! Of course, photos hardly do it justice, but I took a bunch anyway! Giovanni is such an incredible wealth of information, he told us about the formations and some of the Maya legends. We turned out our lights and experience the total darkness. Then paddled back. Such and incredible experience!

Oh! There he is!

Jinx, Rio and Peggy joined us for the paddle into the cave. Rio lives near MET, and his aunts were visiting from Louisiana.

As we enter the cave....

The stalactites are many and varied.

Look carefully on the rock, there is a skull up there!

Back out of the cave, we had our picnic lunch, then piled into the vehicle to go back to the ranch. Rico had taken June back for me. We drove through the Mennonite community and got lots of information from Gio. We stopped at the sawmill again. It was not running, so I was comfortable taking some pictures. You will just have to imagine the horses! We drove back to the ranch (a much shorter route and out of the direct sunshine AND air conditioning in the vehicle) then I showered and changed. Since it is still “generator time” I am working hard to get this blog caught up! It may be my only chance this week!

Enjoy!!