YAXHA MAYA SITE & INTO BELIZE

The little lump sticking up on the horizon is a temple at Yaxha.

I really enjoyed Yaxha. We had it to ourselves with just a few workers and lots of interesting critters as company.

 Black howler monkeys

Some sort of tiny bees

From the temple tops you can see 2 lakes.

The rosy color is what's left of the bright red that coated the temples 1000 years ago. Shame on those who think their names and their visit are more important than the ancient history of the site.

 More bees (a different kind) headed in and out of this tube.

 Rain approaching; the storm had lost steam before it made its way to us.

 A female 16 year locust

Can you see the hand planting a seed in the center of this one? I took this photo for my husband Mike, a gardener.

And this one, too, because the twists look like our wedding rings. I hadn't had cell service for days until I was atop a temple here; I called Mike with parrots and black howlers providing accompaniment.

Here Roxy is collecting copal, a traditional incense, from a copal tree; as she stepped back we saw a large, beautiful lizard on the trunk just inches away from where she'd been standing.

Orchid

Locust casings

 Another 16 year locust; this 1 is a male, the light gone out of its eyes.

In this cutaway left by archaeologists, you can see stairways from 3 separate constructions.

 There are 2 parrots in this photo; can you see the one to the left of the 1 that is preening?

2 views from the same spot

Roxy said this is black howler monkey poo; you can tell their poo from spider monkey poo because spider monkeys are greedy, messy eaters and swallow the fruit seeds which is apparent on the leaving end.

An oropendola and nests

Proof I was there, descending the steep, narrow steps of a temple.

I loved this stela - see details below.

The character on the lower left is a dwarf or little person; archaeologists thought for awhile that there might have been a community of them established on a nearby island based on the size of structures and the frequency of depictions through different time frames.

Build-as-money-comes-available construction, worth a picture:

or 2:

After most of the afternoon at Yaxha, we headed east to Belize.

Full moon in the late afternoon

Belize requires current insurance stickers, normally obtained from the offices just past the border station. They closed shop early but some nice ladies just leaving the parking lot made a call and then lead the way into a residential neighborhood where we sat in this insurance saleswoman's home acquiring the necessary sticker for Roxy's windshield. Ah, Belize!

We were staying the night at Th e Trek Stop but the little restaurant there was closed before we arrived until after we planned to leave the next morning. We had dinner at Benny's Kitchen in San Jose Succotz

 and then shopped at Hua Yong Chinese grocery (most of the grocery stores in Belize are Chinese groceries) for juice and snacks for breakfast.

 At the restaurant and again at the store, geckos plopped down from the ceiling to the floor, looked stunned for a moment, and scurried off. Good night!