Today was a beautiful morning and I wasn’t woken up by dogs
rooster, birds or honking car horns. The sun was out and we rode a bus with a
ProWorld group from Cali (they don’t like us very much) to listen to our host
mom and her brother teach us about traditional medicine and I tell you we saw
it work first hand. My roommate was constipated from the change in diet down
here and has been taking laxitives with nothing happening and she made him a
drink made out of the Napoli cactus and it worked within 20 minutes I couldn’t
believe it. After that lecture we went and saw the mayan ruins of Xuantinich
and that was a long hilly hike in. The view from the top of the largest temple
was beautiful. You could see Guatemala on one side and the rest of Belize on
the other. We saw a ton of iguanas and other lizzards there. After the mayan
ruins we went to the resort where our lecture was and had lunch and then headed
to the botanical gardens deep in the rainforest. All the roads are dirt and it
was tough getting a bus back there. So on the tour of the botanical gardens we
picked star fruit off the trees and saw banana trees and tons of other
plants. Their country flower is the
black orchid. There is a tree that itches like poison ivy when you touch the
sap and that is called “Black Poison” and right near the tree was a tree with
the antidote for if you get it on you. It’s a tan tree with red peeling thin
bark and you rub the bark on your skin. That was pretty cool. On a side note
there was a slaughtering of 4 gang members in belize city about 70 miles from
san Ignacio where we are staying. This happened a couple nights ago and its
thought that the gang unit of the police force did that. All the bodies where
cut up throats were cut execution style. If that’s the case they are worried
about retaliation and there is a travel advisory to stay out of belize city.
The news just came on and reminded me of it. They are under marshal law and in
a state of emergency right now. Its crazy to actually be this close. So back to
the day. We tasted termites and they actually weren’t bad they tasted like wood
and mint. We were still waiting for the Cali group at the end so we went to the
river and I jumped in and swam and jumped off a cliff. Now the exciting part
started. Oh and another thing, the Cali group hates us for some reason so there
is tension. So we start our bus ride back and we tried driving back up the
first hill and couldn’t get up so we all ran to the back of the bus to put
weight on the back tires and we still couldn’t get up. So we get out and a
tractor pulls the bus up a little and we think we are fine so we all get on
again but the bus gets stuck again and the dirt roads are so wet and muddy and
the bus kept sliding closer to the side of the road where there is a big cliff.
The girls stayed in the back of the bus for weight and the guys started pushing
from the back and side to keep the bus from going off the cliff. It got so
close at one point it wasn’t even safe for any girls to be on the bus. We had
the guys and even some girls and these two friendly locals come help and we start
pushing and pushing but we are only making it a couple feet. The other ProWorld
group left us and walked down the road where they got picked up by another
vehicle. Finally after we put rocks under the back tires and rested a bit we
gave it one last attempt. It was so close to the edge that we could no longer
push from the one side anymore and so were ready because Dr. Hickey said we all
get good final grades if we get it unstuck and up the hill. So again we counted
from 3 to 2 to 1 and pushed as hard as we could and got the bus unstuck. We
were all so happy it was dangerous but we all had fun and had a good time. So
we went on and then saw a huge rainbow. It was the first time I saw a full
rainbow. So we stopped the bus and all of us took a picture. The end of the day
was so nice. We finally got to relax. I slept like a baby.
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