The next day after talking to the tourist info center as well as one of the Inn owners, an American dude who has lived in Belize for 30 years, we decided to head into the little Mayan village of Laguna. This village, as well as others in the area, have tried to bring money into their communities by inviting tourists to come and stay in the village and learn about the modern Mayan way of life. When visiting the village you eat every meal at one of the villagers homes and learn about how they farm and what they eat etc. It was a little awkward as they do not have a phone, so you just show up and the village accommodates you. We hired a taxi to take us into the village and sure enough they were surprised to see us. We are in the off season and they do not expect tourists until November. However, they quickly took care of us and a woman named Justina, led us to the 'guest house'. Keeping with the authentic experience our house was just like the villagers house, called a Palapa. It is built of local wood with a thatch roof made of palm fronds. No electricity but they did supply lanterns. The toilet and shower was in a wooden structure outside; the toilet a latrine, a large hole in the ground.
The villagers were farmers mainly. They all lived in one room Palapas, although usually the kitchen was in a second Palapa next to the main house. The families are large, 5-9 children. Most of the families sleep in hammocks though we did met one woman who had a bed. They grind the corn daily (they have a diesel operated mill, no more hand grinding) for the corn tortillas that they eat with EVERY meal. They showed us how they made them and they still cook them over a stone fireplace over a wood fire. They were really yummy tortillas. Some of the villagers did have electricity and some had regular stoves and even fridges. Yet, even if they had an 'real' oven, the tortillas were always cooked over the wood fire. Our first afternoon we were picked up at our house and taken on a village tour. We were shown the new water system that now brings water into their houses so they do not have to go to the centralized pumps. This is a mixed blessing. Although they had to walk to get water, it was free, now they have a water system they have to pay the water company and many do not have any money to do so. We were showed the local school and the school garden where children learn to grow various plants and then cook them. The village was very small, pop 300, and the roads are all dirt and mud. There are numerous chickens, ducks, pigs and horses that wander the village looking for food. Although they are owned by certain members they are free to roam. Talk about free ranging! The village is laden with fruit trees, it was amazing! Guava, tons and tons of Mango trees, breadfruit trees, calabash trees, huge palm trees with a small nut quite like a coconut, banana palms, monkey apple trees and many others that we were unfamiliar with. One nice aspect of visiting the Maya in Belize is that they all speak English very well. They are all multilingual, even the children.
Our first night one of the village children stopped by our house and took us to our dinner. Miss Rosa had prepared a venison stew, a local deer that had been caught in the jungle, with tortillas. We also had the opportunity to try the authentic chocolate drink. Rosa has her own cacao trees and makes the chocolate drink. It was wonderful and we felt like Mayan royalty drinking this traditional Mayan drink that is thousands of years old. It was Rosa's grandfather that had escaped turmoil in Guatemala in the late 50's and founded the village of Laguna in 1959. Laguna is named after the very large and plentiful Lagoon that the village sits near. Because of heat and mosquitoes we did not sleep the first night. Our mosquito netting was not like regular netting, it was more like gauze and so we had no air flow. We went back and forth all night putting the net up to cool off, and getting eaten alive, to putting the net down and lying in pools of sweat. At six in the morning the corn mill started its humming and we pulled ourselves from our bunks thinking that perhaps we were too old for this.
Our day started with a hike into the jungle. Our guide Pablo picked us up at 8am. He said that he had had a rough night himself as he had a fever, perhaps a bout of malaria, that he had gotten years before. Keith and I tried to ignore the fact that we had been dinner for hundreds of hungry mosquitoes the night before and started our jungle hike. Pablo took us into the hills pointing out many of the fruit trees, medicinal plants and edible plants in the forest. The hike, although hot as hell and yes, equipped with mosquitoes, was really amazing. The path led us through giant palms that towered into the sky and the canopy was thick with lush tropical foliage. Pablo led us to an area that had been cleared to plant cacao, the villagers harvest and sell the cacao beans for chocolate. We then hiked up to this huge cave in the hillside and equipped with flashlights explored the cave. It was beautiful, and very eerie, filled with tiny bats and incredible rock formations. Once back in town after our hike, we had an hour to spare before lunch and searched our house for some other type of mosquito netting. We were in luck, we found two, real nets, washed them outside in a bucket, fixed any holes and left them to dry. We were determined to sleep! For lunch we ate Jippy Joppa, this is the soft young part of a palm frond. You find the palm and pull out a newly growing leaf and the bottom is soft and white. Then you chop it up and cook it. It looked awful, but was really yummy.
After lunch we had a craft lesson in the afternoon, which was mainly a time for the tons of kids to gather and watch the gringos try to weave. It was really fun. The local women then showed us their crafts and of course want to sell them. We bought way too much stuff!! But it was so inexpensive and we felt like we were their only chance to make any money until season. Our second night we slept very well,our new nets were fantastic . By the time we left the village we were sad to go, we felt like we started to get to know people throughout the village and it was so beautiful. They had so many fruit trees everywhere, the Emery trees would fill with roosting parrots in the evening. Neither Keith nor I had seen parrots in the wild before, and so many making a racket in the trees. One night I went to our outdoor toilet and there was a HUGE hairy tarantula next to the door. OH MY, that is also something I had not seen in the wild before!! They are SOOOOOO creepy looking!!!!! It seemed that by the time we left even the villagers we sad to see us go and we exchanged our e-mail with a couple of the people. (Not that they have e-mail in their houses, but the school has one computer that is kept under lock and key. The computer attendant opens up the computer to the village for an hour or two every evening). We were up at 5am the next morning so we could catch the only village bus back into Punta Gorda. It was an amazing experience!
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