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| The Lubaantun Mayan Ruins
in Belize. This site is different from others in
that it was built entirely without the use of
mortar. All rocks are just laid on top of each
other. This of course led, over time, to rocks
shifting and structures collapsing. Very
interesting site though. |
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We were riding from Punta Gorda
in the south to Orange Walk in the north of
Belize when disaster struck.
Jayne's Honda
XR150L suddenly started to make really
bad noises from the engine. She pulled over
and I started to troubleshoot. The bike was
out of oil. I rode on my bike to the nearest
farm and bough a liter of oil, while Jayne
stayed in the little shade there was along the
road. With oil in the bike the noise didn't go
away, so it was time to use the emergency
phone that Emma from Alternate Adventure
Motorcycle Rental had provided. She
immediately sent her mechanic on a spare bike
to us and he arrived after about 45 minutes.
The plan was that we would take the spare bike
and carry on, while the mechanic would try to
fix Jayne's bike on the side of the road,
which I doubted was possible... |
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...The spare bike was a Lifan
ZR250, which is taller than the Honda, therefore
Jayne took my bike and I rode the Lifan. Not 5
km down the road disaster struck again.
The Lifan made a bang and it lost all forward
drive, while the engine kept running fine. It
turned out that the bolts that hold the rear
sprocket on the wheel had all sheared off and
the sprocket was turning but not the wheel. Time
to call Emma again.
She was very apologetic and sent a pickup with
another spare bike. The driver would deliver the
bike to us, pick up our broken Lifan and then
continue on to pick up the mechanic and his
broken bike. This time it had happened in a
village and the very nice locals invited us to
sit in the shade with them and even helped us
load the broken bike when the truck arrived
after about 1.5 hours... |
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...Emma said that in her 12 years
experience the Honda
XR150L's never use oil and since we had
ridden less than 1000 km it hadn't occurred to
me to check the oil.
While it was unfortunate that we had to change
our plans and didn't get to ride to Orange Walk
and see Lamanai (we didn't have enough time
left) we were able to cancel our hotel
reservation. Emma really made an effort to make
it right. Not only did she send spare bikes
quickly, but after the second breakdown she
didn't charge us for that rental day and offered
us to stay the night in a room at her hostel, Crash Pad, for
free. She also offered recommendations for what
to do and see around Hopkins, Belize on our last
two days.
We understand that shit happens, it's an
adventure trip after all, and we really
appreciate her efforts. |
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| There had been some heavy
downpours the night before, so we knew we would
have to deal with mud on the unpaved roads
to the Mayflower Bocawina National Park in
Belize. Most of it wasn't too bad, but some
sections were just slippery muck. This is
exactly what we had feared and tried to avoid on
our ride to Caracol, which could have been
around 30 miles of this, instead of just a
couple that it was here. |
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The Mayflower Bocawina
National Park in Belize has several
different things to offer, ziplining, hiking
rappelling and more. Since a long hike in the
humid heat wasn't appealing to us, we decided to
do the zipline. The zipline has 9 runs
and a total of over 2 miles. It still was a bit
of a hike uphill to get to the starting
platform.
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| The two zipline guides
were very nice and patient and we had a great
time, even Jayne, who is afraid of heights.
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