Lamanai: A great place to visit
It’s that time of year when nearly every airplane that leaves Belize City is packed full. And this year is no exception…but there is one difference. Where traditionally the passengers were mostly Belizeans headed for summer holidays in Miami, New York, L.A. or Chicago, the majority now seems to be foreign tourists returning from happy holidays in Belize. And what about the Belizeans? It seems that a growing number are beginning to discover what the tourists found out long ago: Belize is a great place for a vacation. Here at News Five, we’ve been singing that song for almost a decade and over the next few months we’ll be revisiting some of our favourite places that make great day or weekend getaways. Tonight we travel to the Orange Walk District and the magnificent Maya site of Lamanai. William Neal is our host and you can be the judge of whether his looks and talents have improved since this story first aired in 1993.
William Neal
“There are two ways to get to Lamanai, one is by road through the village of San Felipe, the other is by boat up the New River from Tower Hill. With a chance to see bird, exotic plants and maybe a crocodile, I’ll take the jungle cruise.”
The trip up the river takes approximately one hour and the pristine environment adds to the mystique and adventure of Lamanai. The boat journey comes to an end as you enter into the New River Lagoon and the anticipation begins as the main temple can be seen towering above the forest.
Nazario Ku, Lamanai Curator
“One of the things that really strikes me at Lamanai, is that it retained its original name from 1621 when the first historians wrote about the name. Not as well as in other city-states, where the names were given by archaeologists. Lamanai is probably one of the few that retained their original name.”
Nazario Ku has been the curator at Lamanai for a year, but has worked at different sites around the country for over ten years.
Nazario Ku
“Lamanai itself means the “Drowned Insect”. What might have happened in the early periods of the Spanish arrival here, is that they were mispronouncing the word to say, and my missing the final end, they changed the name of what we believed to be Lamanai Yin. And by missing the final end, it also changed the meaning of the city states name.”
“Maya here started as a settlement around 1500 B.C. and they flourished as a city state around the 2nd century B.C., which is a long time between. This is one of the uniqueness of Lamanai because it was inhabited for around 3,000 and over. The highest peak of the Lamanai was about the 6th to the 7th century A.D. even though at the 10th century A.D., they were performing sacrificial rites. There were still offerings to the Gods and what makes Lamanai unique, is that when other city states were falling into decline, Lamanai was still going on strong.”
Lamanai is located on 950 acres of archeological reserve and features more than a hundred minor structures and over a dozen major ones. This ruin called the Temple of the Mask, houses a stucco mask of an Olmec God, which some believe to be of Kinich Ahau, the Sun God. The size of this temple seems impressive until you approach the one next door, which is one of the tallest buildings in the country, believed to be the temple of sacrifice at Lamanai.
William Neal
“It’s not an easy climb, but it’s worth it, and once you get up here, you can see why the Maya built their temples so high…the view is breathtaking.”
Although not half as fantastic as it must have been in ancient times, when men, women, and children crowded the market place exchanging exotic goods from all over the Maya world.
William Neal
“A thousand years ago, Lamanai wasn’t all covered in bush. In fact the place where I am standing was the centre of a ball court where the game Pokta Pok was played.”
In the game, warriors competed to win the honour of being sacrificed on the high altar, so that their blood could renew the life of the Sun God. Life at Lamanai was highly organised and the people were self sufficient, though shells, jade and clay found in the area indicate plenty of outside contact.
William Neal
“Some people like to say that “Spanish foot never cross the Hondo”. But Spanish priests came up the New River to convert the Maya to Christianity and built this church over 300 years ago.”
Nazario Ku
“When the Spaniards passed by here, in 1544, two years after the conquest of the Aztecs, the happened to pass by here by accident. When the say a flourishing city state, probably that meant something to them. One of the things that probably made them return, was that the people that were inhabiting here, were much more than the other settlements and they started to Christianize the Maya here around 1570 and they also constructed a church and the Maya turned apostate against that church, because as you know, the Mayas were polytheistic, they had different Gods. One of the things that contributed to the anger of the Maya is that they destroyed one of the temples and on top of the fundamentals of that, the foundation of that temple, they constructed their first church. Most likely if somebody comes to your house and burns down your house and constructs another one, that will may you angry. The same thing happened with the Maya and Mayas destroyed this first construction and they burnt the nearby houses also. The stubbornness of the Spanish made way to a second church which was also burnt down by the Maya.”
William Neal
“By the middle of the 19th century, the Spanish and the Maya were nowhere to be found at Lamanai, but the Industrial Revolution was. English businessmen built this sugar mill around 1865, but it was soon to be reclaimed by the jungle.”
In its own way, the ornate craftsmanship of the brick and ironwork is as much a wonder as the limestone and mortar ten centuries earlier. The English mill, the Spanish church and the Maya temples have created an attraction for tourists that is among Belize’s best. William Neal for News Five.
A number of companies operate tours to Lamanai. Most boats leave from the vicinity of the Tower Hill Bridge.
