Get canoe ready, Ruta Maya 2 race set
If you’re the kind of person who likes adventure, you may want to consider entering the second annual Ruta Maya Canoe Race over the ninth of March weekend. All you need is a canoe, some sleeping bags, the registration fee and a three-person team willing to get a little wet. Richard Harrison of Big H Enterprises says the seventy-eight mile canoe race began a year ago as a way to introduce Vida water, but is also intended to bring back the spirit of Baron Bliss Day as well as create an awareness of what the Belize River Valley has to offer.
Richard Harrison
“The race starts on the sixth of March right under the Hawksworth Bridge in San Ignacio. It takes off from there, the first night we stop at Banana Bank Lodge. The people of Banana Bank Lodge have been so kind to us to allow us to stop on their property and then the second night we stop at Russell’s Place in Bermudian Landing. Last year we had great fun out there. We encourage all the community to come out, people to come out to these villages and spend the evening with us with campfire and so on. And then the third night we stop at Old River Tavern in Burrell Boom, before we wake up the following morning which is the ninth, very early, and we take a, I’m not sure if it’s a half mile dash, but the paddlers take off from Old River Tavern and make a dash for the Boom Bridge where Belize Offshore Center has a $1,000 prize and then it runs into Belize City from there through the Haulover Creek and it comes into Belize City.
This event is more than just Vida Purified Water and Big H; this event has a lot to do with reviving the spirit of a major Belizean holiday, celebrating a gift which a benefactor gave to our country. Besides building a product, building a tourism product, we can see this race evolving, creating projects like for example what we are trying to achieve this year is build a small catalogue of avian species of the Belize River Valley. This little booklet could be used as a guide, that tour guides use to sell to tourists when they are taking them on the tours. There are so many other things besides that which can evolve out of this project. So the project is more than just Vida and Big H; the project is also about being Belizean and developing a tourism product for Belize.”
Harrison says the race committee will provide food, security, a big tent and clean up at the various campsites. Entrants need to bring their own tent if they want one and life jackets for each member of their team. There is a two hundred dollar registration fee, but they are hoping to offer over fifteen thousand dollars in prizes. Last year thirty-one teams started the race with twenty-two finishing. The winning team was Snooty Fox from Bullet Tree Falls. For more information or to register contact Big-H Enterprises in San Ignacio.
