Lamanai

Amir was right: while we were eating our lunch, consisting of chicken, rice, quite spicy salsa and fried plantain – the usual Latin American food, minus beans in this case – and potato salad, cooked as he said, by his mother, the crowds wandered back to the pier. By the time we were done we were pretty much alone.

And then it was time to find what we had come for. It had started to rain, but underneath the dense canopy we hardly felt it, and the broad gravelled paths were easy to walk on. Howler monkeys roared in the distance, but other than that it was quiet. After only about ten minutes the first of the three main temples uncovered at this site lay before us, the Mask Temple. Amir explained that when a new dynasty had come into power the old temple often had simply been covered by a new layer instead of starting again from the bottom.

Lamanai is one of the oldest continually inhabited Mayan sites in Belize, occupied from as early as 1500 BC until the 18^th century, for more than 3000 years. Only a tiny percentage of Mayan ruins has been excavated; most of them are covered by the jungle. According to Amir there are more Mayan pyramids in Belize than there are homes now. Lamanai itself housed up to 50,000 people at its peak, while the total population of the Yucatan is estimated at 2,000,000 people at that time. It was still occupied when the Spanish arrived, but its decline had taken place about 600 years before already. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, but most certainly it had to do with the environment: most of the trees had been cut down, possibly needed in the making of the cement used for mortar and to pave plazas. A one hundred year long period of drought led to the demise of about 80% of the population, be it from hunger, disease or fighting between warring neighbours.

The mask temple which we now saw in front of us is remarkable because of the masks of two kings to the left and right of the main staircase. Amir pointed out some of the features: the rounded teeth, which indicated that these were people of the upper class because only they were allowed to file their teeth that way. While the men filed their teeth round the women filed them to resemble jaguar fangs, with jade inlays or designs filed into them. The mask to the right of the staircase had a crocodile headdress, no longer intact but still there in part. The crocodile is of special significance for Lamanai: the name means 'Submerged Crocodile'.

Next we arrived at the most impressive feature of Lamanai, the High Temple. 33 m in height, only the priests and men of the elite were allowed to climb to its top. To ensure the benevolence of the gods the Maya practiced human sacrifice. Unlike the Aztecs, for instance, who slaughtered indiscriminately, the Maya chose only the best: warriors and people of the elite, so that it was an honour to be sacrificed, and sacrifices were limited to special occasions like solstices, equinoxes, or times where auspices were needed, in times of war or to ensure good crops.

Now, wooden stairs, hidden from view, lead around the side of the temple to the level below the top. Once there, we were able to ascend the last set of stone stairs - I needed a bit of persuasion -  and could enjoy the marvellous view. The jungle canopy stretched out all around us, and not far away the silver band of the New River was visible. The Maya most certainly would have been able to see many other buildings from here. 

 The last of the temples was the Jaguar temple, so called because of the jaguar face set into its walls. The jaguar, like other animals - the crocodile, the turtle, the serpent and the frog for instance - was much revered by the Maya. Amir showed us a small sculpture of a crocodile at the museum. The Maya believed that humans lived on a circle on its back, and that the crocodile steadily turned, making one revolution in a day. In the evening it opened its mouth and swallowed the sun, and in the morning, having turned 180 degrees, it opened its mouth again to release it.

As for the turtle, according to Maya mythology it exploded and released the planets. The frog, like the serpent, was connected with rain and water.

It was a special gift to experience Lamanai all by ourselves, just our small group of ten. Amir invoked the scene that would have surrounded us had we been there a thousand years ago: the big concrete plaza filled with people eating, drinking, celebrating, the musicians with their drums, flutes and conch shells on a platform above the crowds, but well below the level of the ruling class and the priests, a place vibrant and alive. Now, it has been taken back by the jungle, except for bouts of visitors quiet, a paradise for the creatures of the forest again.

Thinking back to the burial customs of the Kogi people in Colombia I asked Amir how the Maya buried their dead. Just like the Kogi they buried them under their houses, but unlike them they continued to live there even with many buried below. Bones were unearthed again here after a time, too, and put in urns. Most adults were buried in east-west direction, their heads facing west; only children and warriors were buried with their head in the east: they were believed to go right to heaven after they died.

Interesting, too, was the fact that children had toys with wheels as we saw in the small museum; the Maya did not use the wheel otherwise. This, Amir explained, was due to the fact that the circle was sacred, and children were innocent still and thus close to heaven.

The museum had some of the artifacts found at the site on display. A special feature of the pottery found here is that plates and bowls were on a pedestal. Amir proudly showed us a piece of almost intact pottery he had found while fishing a few years back and donated to the museum. Some of the columns uncovered displayed pictographs, remnants of the written Maya language that was decipherable by the different Mayan groups on the Yucatan peninsula even though they didn't – don't – speak the same language, in fact could not understand each other if they were talking to each other. The language spoken in this area is Yucatec, and Amir said it was still mixed into their Spanish when they conversed in that language. Most of the books, written on bark paper, were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores; only four main works remain, the most important the Dresden codex.

We left in awe, once again, at what had existed here, what had been destroyed and what still lies buried, covered by the almighty jungle. We will never know the whole extent of this empire.

The way back on the river served only to get us home again; no more stopping for plants or birds, and here and there a shortcut. It was a wonderful day, and I'm glad we did not pass by Orange Walk, unremarkable as the town itself may seem.