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Just returned from a week in Mountain Pine Ridge. And yes I too was surprised to see a pine forest in Belize! We "camped" in a mostly abandoned town, which used to be the home of forest service personel, but due to budget cuts most of the workers have been laid off. We went on at least one hike everyday. Our first night we hiked up to a cave full of stalagtites and stalagmites. We hiked/crawled/slid to as far as we could go, and then sat in complete darkness listening to water drop. We also had a military escort on one of our hikes! Four armed guards hiked with us for like three hours! We were about thirty miles from the Guatemalan border, where Xateros (shateros) frequent. The xateros come to illegally harvest xate to send to the US for floral arrangment. Needless to say, the xate population in Mountian Pine Ridge and other border areas is seriously declining. The xateros have been known to kidnap hikers to send the military a message.
When the Xateros are arrested, their horses are confiscated, so there were about ten horses roaming around the area where we were staying. On the last day, my friend, Sonja and I finally got the okay to try and ride them. We caught two initially, but one had a huge sore on his back, so we gave him a couple granola bars and let him go. The other one let us hop on his back and could almost get into a trot before he felt like he was going to fall over and die. We managed to get a rope halter made and we were riding him around when another horse came over to us, so Sonja jumped on him and the two of us spent the afternoon riding the xateros confiscated horses! I hope everywhere we go has horses I can ride for free!
We also went swimming/bathing everyday. Most of the nights we went to a popular site called Rio On Pools. One day there were a lot of tourists there and we were all sitting in the pools washing our hair and our clothes, needless to so there were quite a few stares! But at Rio On you could go down a bunch of the rapids. My knees and shins are all banged up now, but it was fun! The other site we went to was a waterfall which is closed to the public. The forest service is considering opening it to all and they wanted our opinion. It was beautiful! We had to walk about a mile down a steep road (and then back up!) which was impassible in our van to get to the site, but it was worth it. A couple of us climbed to the very top waterfall and stood under it, the water was so powerful and clear. On our way back from Mountain Pine Ridge we stopped at another waterfall. This one was smaller and we could jump off the cliff next to it, so we went cliff diving! A girl in my group climbed all the way up to the top, but was too scared to jump off and there was no way else to get down. So I stood with her and we agreed to jump together. After about ten minutes of talking it through I thought I finally had her convinced to jump. We counted to three and I was about to jump when she said "no." So here I am teetering on the edge of this thirty foot cliff, I could see everyone in my group bug-eyed staring at me, watching to see if I was about to fall to my death! I ended up regaining my balance and we tried again, except she didn't jump and I did. Our leader had to climb up and virtually push her off in order for us to leave.
We had a nice day off in San Ignacio, lounging around and getting laundry done. We went out on Saturday night. Another eventful night for the SIT students! We spent about four hours at a bar called Cocapele, doing Irish Car Bombs, Tequilla shots, and drinking way too much Belikin (the official beer of Belize)! Six of us made it up the hill to a night club where we danced and everyone stared at us, and then we made our way back down to our hostel. We were out on the porch talking until about three thirty in the morning, when Tom knocked over a plastic pot and the women who owns the hostel yelled at us. But nothing got broken and we didn't get in trouble, so no harm done!
previous travel blog entry
daniela stevens says:
roomie, i´m so glad you´re having a great time. i miss you! i can´t wait to share stories and pics and eveything when we get back. much love from ecuador!