At Don Abulto's we were lucky enough to meet Eduardo, his son-in-law. His family is from Orangewalk and they were gracious enough to put us up for the night (as well as store our bikes when we took the bus back to Chetumal and feed us some great Belizean food). Also in Orange walk we met Hernan who owned the biggest bike shop in Orangewalk and also owns a cycling team, Team Typhoon. They were kind enough to check out some clicks we had on our bikes and we swapped out Leah's pedals. Our mechanic was the legendary Nissan, the #1 cyclist in Belize right now, and a really nice guy.
In the afternoon we were riding across town and saw a really neat photographic opportunity, there were 3 mennonite boys standing outside a store looking in. All three were dressed the same, black overalls and blue longsleeve shirt. I turned around to take a photo and they had started walking off. They stopped for ice cream right near where we had headed and I asked the father if I might be able to take a photo of them all. After thinking about it he said it would be no problem, and asked if he also might be able to have a copy of the photo. I told him that it is just on the computer, and suggested that if he have an address I could send it to him. I don't think they had and address as he just looked at me like I was crazy. We talked for a while before taking the photo and found out that the four kids with them (each maybe a year and half apart) were only four of TEN! The family was very shy and the father, Isaak, did all the talking. He showed us where he lives on a little map he had and we told him that we might be able to bring the photo to his family. After we took the photo we left to find a place to print it up as we were leaving town early the next morning.
Later that afternoon Leah and Isai found a route on the map that allowed us to deliver the photo, altering our original plan, but in a hugely positive way. The new way would be 90% dirt road and 100% better than taking the highway we had planned on taking (we think).
We ended up leaving town early and saying goodbye to our hosts, but not of course without getting fed first. We headed out for Indian Church, the mennonite settlement. In one of the towns we met some mennonites that showed us a good route to get to Indian Church, through some other mennonite settlements. As we rode through the settlements it was apparent that they don't get many (if any) bike tourists through those parts. Children stared, laughed, waved (only two), and one actually verbally responded to my "Aviterzen!" We disrupted tag games, the goings on at the school houses, and almost made a woman run off the road in her horse buggy as she stared at us. Some of the people would hardly give us anything but a stare, but most were friendly enough to at least smile and wave, then go back to staring. I'm not sure how they teach the kids (mostly the females) to be so stoic, but they are very good at it.
After playing cat an mouse with a few horse and buggies we found our way to Isaak's house where he was working on his tractor (yes, these mennonites have tractors, but no cars or anything else) with kids scattered about the yard. I think he was very surprised to see us and cam out with a shy smile on his face. I presented him with the photo (above) and he asked how much I owed him. I told him nothing, that it was a gift for he and his family. He accepted our gift and we talked with him for a bit. He was interested in our trip, but too shy to ask too many questions. We tried to keep the conversation going but it was a little difficult. Isaak had his son go bring us out some papayas in exchange for the photo. His son proudly stuck his chest out as he brought us four huge papayas and handed them to us. We stashed the fruit where ever we could find room and said our goodbyes and left.
As we headed out it was getting time to set up camp and we found an lot with an abandoned house and some fruit trees to sleep at for the night. Isai went wondering off as we started to unpack and came running back with a couple of bees attacking his head where he had been stung. we decided to find another spot to camp where the bees wouldn't find Isai and set up camp there. That night we enjoyed a delicious meal of velveeta mac & cheese. That night I also realized that I had done it again, I left my shants in Orangewalk...I even went back and double checked everything this time...just the wrong place.
We headed out early in the morning for San Felipe where we met Manuel who was headed into Orangewalk and gave me a lift into town. Once In Orangewalk, I ran some errands and got back to Leah and Isai before 11 AM. We headed in the direction of Blue Creek Village straight toward the hills. We wound in and out of the hills without having to climb any really until we were 2km outside of the actual town of BCV. There in front of us stood our first climb of the trip. It looked pretty menacing from below, maybe a 2km climb up an escarpment and very, very steep, especially the last part. We arrived at the top breathing the hardest we have yet and feeling pretty damn alive. I was stoked to finally be out of the flats, Leah, not so much, but she, as you all know, is tough, anyone with the nickname Pambo better be.
In BCV we were asking around for directions to Gallon Jug, our next destination, a very remote community and resort in the middle of the rainforest, we just hoped to camp close to there on our way through to San Ignacio. As we were asking around a young guy with a bunch of students in the back of a truck came out to us. He introduced himself as Mike, a school teacher out at Gallon Jug and told us that one of his students overheard us mention GJ. He gave us directions and invited us to the school the next day as there were going to be some grad students from Virginia Tech that are studying the wildcats of Belize giving a presentation. We thanked him for the offer and told him we'd try to make it.
On the way to the dirt road Isai and I had rolling races down the hills and we all had a good time with the gently undulating farmland. After a few km on the dirt road we hit a gate which was the entry to the Rio Bravo Conservation Area, pure rain forest and beautiful. The man at the gate told us that he had no problem letting us in, but there was another gate ahead after the conservation area to get into Gallon Jug and he wasn't sure if that gateman would let us through.
Riding through the rain forest was awesome. The road was pretty well maintained but the coolest part was that the trees stuck up way above us, and we got to hear the howler monkeys, birds and even some spider monkeys. We found a trail toward dusk and went off on it to go set up camp. Unfortunately that night we didn't have any wildcat sightings but we did see the coolest ant colony I have ever seen. I decided that ants are really awesome, as long as they are organized ants that are just crawling all over the place and not biting me. We saw their trails stretching way out, all the mounds and air holes and entrances and the leaf cutter ants marching along with their leaves and the army ants (2-3X bigger than the leaf ants) going 2-3x faster than all the others stepping on top of them. It was just fascinating to watch them (come on guys, it's the simple things in life that count). That night we enjoyed a delicious dinner of prunes, baked beans (Isai's least favorite thing in the world), and melted Reeces peanut butter blobs for dessert, we were living it up! All this was to change the next day though...
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