Although Batty Brothers, Z-Lines and James Bus sold their routes to Novelo’s a few years ago, the buses still bear the names of their predecessors. Like a teenager’s first car, Belize employs garishly colored, rickety school buses handed down from public schools in the United States. Each time we load our heavy backpacks into the rear via the emergency exit door, the characteristic warning buzz whisks me to peculiar childhood memories.
Often the driver and the conductor are scarcely older than eighteen, two friends rattling down the highway in search of passengers. One drives, the other collects a questionably calculated fare from passengers. Although route schedules post themselves on the walls of every depot, no particular adherence to time seems apparent or, to be frank, necessary.
After several hours of gaped mouth wonder at the Belize Zoo, we walk back to the isolate Western Highway, squat in the shade of a banana tree for some time, and hop aboard the next passing bus to Belmopan.
LaFleur and I watch the impenetrable knitting of green looming large on both sides of our periphery, swaying to the rhythm of the winding Western Highway. A moist breeze pulls in through the square windows and soothes the salty heat of our skin. We alight in a dusty gravel bus station lot and quickly find a reasonable hotel.
Aside from our brief encounter with the toothless hotel owner and his eight year old grandson, “the tiny manager,” we endure a dreadfully boring afternoon trapped in the suburban doldrums of Belmopan. We amble for miles, a desperate peregrination for adventure leading only to the roundabout, an asphalt confluence of the Hummingbird and Western Highways.
Xeroxed tourism advertising on fluorescent paper litters a small table near the entrance of a vacant American-style pizzeria, the only restaurant we can find. We grab a few ads, seat ourselves, and lustfully read about nearby places infinitely more exciting than here. One pamphlet for Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Adventure Company reads:
“We strive to create expeditions that not only provide the utmost in adventure, but that also maintain the natural and historical integrity of these areas. We also aim to educate travelers to Belize in our pristine resources; the tropical rainforest, its wildlife, the great, ancient Maya civilization and its most sacred ceremonial centres… Xibalba!”
LaFleur and I agree upon Caves Branch before our pizza arrives. Xibalba, the caved underworld of the Maya, should rectify our boredom. After several helpings of fresh pineapple pizza, we pay our bill and purchase a phone card. At a payphone outside a Chinese bodega, I reserve two spaces on the next River Cave Expedition. We return to our hotel room and finish our day with imported Californian television, an appropriately mindless conclusion to our forgettable stay in the capital city.
The following morning, when our turquoise Novelo’s bus brakes at the road to Caves Branch, a deep sense of skepticism pulls taut my muscles. This is the first and only sight unseen reservation of our trip. As we near the lodge, I noticed the scream and scurry of excited American children playing hide and seek among the small village of cabañas nestled in the foliage. A large, circular parking area around the lodge tears open a significant patch of jungle, an upturned mouth swallowing a teak and mahogany log cabin.
We check in at the office. I hold my neck as the woman behind the desk informs me that the rates from the pamphlet are, in fact, quoted in U.S. dollars:
“That’s eighty-five per person sir, one-hundred seventy dollars American, three hundred forty dollars Belize. Oh my, you don’t have that much? Don’t you have any American money, sir? Why, of course we take credit cards! Boot rental is an additional fifteen dollars per pair, you can’t wear those sandals. Oh, you already have boots? I certainly hope they’re waterproof! Would you like your bags to be placed in a cabaña for you, sir? You’re not? Would you like to? One room bungalows without water start at one-hundred thirty-eight dollars-that’s American-per night. Perhaps you’d be better off in our bunkroom, sir? Shared showers are available also. Alright, suit yourself! Please sign these waivers and I’ll hold on to your credit card until the end of the day.”
Liability Waiver at Caves Branch
We hide our backpacks behind a heavily varnished bar. The words “DANGEROUS” and “DEATH MAY OCCUR” stand in bold capitals among the legalese of the documents. We sign, resigned, and gulp cupfuls of instant coffee-the only freebie we find in this perverse Belizean Disneyland.
Sunburned, sleepy-eyed American patrons in freshly laundered floral print shirts and cargo pants wake themselves with mimosas and bloody marys. Their presence here, deep in the forest, seems so improbable, especially in such large numbers; we have been, quite conspicuously, the only tourists riding buses since we our departure from the coast.
Photo by Lisa L. Doyle
Our guide, a short and sturdy Mayan named Neko, arrives on an dilapidated tractor pulling a flatbed trailer. LaFleur and I, along with a pudgy couple from Vancouver and a family of three from Idaho, stand rattling on the wooden plank bed of the trailer, along with eight over-inflated inner tubes. We hold tightly onto the rails, bouncing behind the tractor for nearly thirty minutes, down the highway and winding through orange and grapefruit groves. My eyes tear in a cloud of diesel exhaust when Neko closes the throttle and jerks to a stop near a stream.
Floating in our tubes, we paddle upstream and into the hungry mouth of an open cave. For the next several hours, the quiet dark relaxes us all into a state of reverential wonder. We abandon the tubes and climb onto high, muddy limestone ledges littered with shards of clay pots, fire pits, and human bones left by ancient shamans. Neko patiently answers questions about the caves, about these underground temples, about Mayan death philosophy and funerary practices.
Picnic on Mayan holy ground
We picnic on the floor of the cave, seated around a large white tablecloth decorated with flour tortillas, fresh vegetables, cheese, and bottles of Marie Sharp’s Habañero Sauce. The couple from Vancouver tosses small bits of tortilla to blind catfish gurgling in the stream nearby.
I whisper to LaFleur, my warm breath in her ear, “Now I understand the cost. How often do you get to dine on the banks of the River Styx?”
We remerge into the chirping sunlight and endure the shaking return commute to the lodge. LaFleur and I wring out and tie our socks to the trailer’s railing, hoping for a dry breeze. Back at the lodge, after reconciling our bill (and downing a few more cups of free coffee), we heft our packs back to the highway and await the next bus to the border in sandaled feet, our boots swinging behind us by their laces.
