We
had arranged with the front desk at Journeys End for a day tour to the
Mayan Ruins at Altun Ha.
This
tour run by Hustler Tours (CLICK TO LINK TO)
was guided by Daniel Nunez. Daniel picked
us up at the Journeys End dock around 8:00 am for the trip across the bay
to the mainland and then up the Bomba River to the Village of Bomba where
we changed our mode of transport from boat to a chartered school bus.
We
had about 20 people aboard after making several other pickup stops before
we set out for the approximate 45 minute trip across the bay. One of
the most interesting parts of the day was the maneuvering at high speed
through the mangrove islands and then up the winding and very narrow Bomba river.
On
our trip up river Daniel pointed out several Termite Nests which in some
cases had plant life growing out of them. We also saw lots of
tropical birds as we wandered up stream to the Village of Bomba where we transferred
to a chartered school bus for the several mile trip to the Ruins at Altun
Ha.
Altun
Ha is most interesting. So far only 2 or 3 sites have been excavated
fully with another 2 or 3 in various stages of excavation. It took
about an hour and a half to fully enjoy the ruins before we got back on the
Bus and proceeded to The Matubo Resort for a non included lunch.
After
lunch we looked around the resort which was part of a large farm operation
in the north central part of Belize. There were beautiful gardens and a
pool if anyone wanted to go swimming.
The
most memorable thing about Matubo was it's "Viper Rum". The
story we got was that there are a lot of non poisonous snakes on the
farm. Someone had the bright idea to pay the field hands for bringing
in these snakes which they would then drop into a 1 liter bottle of rum and
re-label the bottle with a "MATUBO VIPER RUM" label and sell
it for $50.00 a bottle. This accomplishes two things, a. It thins down the
snake population and b. They get to sell a $4.00 bottle of Rum for
$50.00. We did not buy a bottle, however, their were others on the
trip with us that did and proceeded to drink quite a bit on the trip back
to San Pedro. The did not die, at least immediately, but I will bet that
there were some really bad headaches the next morning.
We
arrived back at the Journeys End at about 5:00 pm after a full and very
interesting day.