Playing in the mud

It was an unassuming enough invitation, a day of canoeing at a nearby protected area where a good friend has been working as a Peace Corps Volunteer. We had just finished a particularly difficult swim back into the cave. The water still being a little high, I nearly lost my swimsuit bottoms several times as I swept through raging currents in a dark underground river. A boat ride through a gentle lagoon while looking at birds sounded about as easy as it gets.

A couple of days later I arrived at the designated road junction at the appointed time. Jeff was there reading a 10-day old copy of the New York Times, having had arrived from the other direction by bike. We started walking the 3-miles in to the village where the park, Aguacaliente Wildlife Preserve, begins, and were soon overtaken by Mike and his friend Andy who was visiting from the states. The guys stashed their bikes in the bush and the 4 of us headed towards Laguna. Once at the village we put on our mud boots and started the somewhat muddy trip towards the lagoon, where we would find a large wooden canoe. Problem one: someone from the village came up to us and informed us that the large boat was leaking, so we would have to fit into the smaller, lightweight canoe that was dry-docked at the visitors center. Not a problem for seasoned adventurers such as ourselves, so we continued on the trail turned raised boardwalk.

It was a pleasant stroll on the wooden planks above the soft jungle floor, and we reached the visitors center quickly. Two of the guys agreed to carry the boat from the center to the lagoon. Fifteen minutes later we came to the lagoon, well actually it was a muddy stream that led to the lagoon, but it was the end of the trail. We put the boat in the water, and as we carefully boarded, we all realized that this was going to be trickier that we had first anticipated. Wobble left, wobble right, water coming over one side, then the other, and soon the whole boat and all it’s occupants were in the waist-deep mud. We all stood up laughing and waded back to shore to try this again. Surely we weren’t going to be outsmarted by a canoe, but this time we would use sticks to stabilize. Try number two got us about 20 feet past the dock before the entire boat sank. At this point, not being much of a fan of murkey swamp water, especially when up to my shoulders in it, I panicked and reached the shore breathing hard, swearing off canoes forever (this is actually the 2nd time in Belize I have done this). No worries, Mike says, there is a land route.

The land route was cruelly misnamed, as there was far less land and far more water. Ducking under thorn bushes, balancing on water-rotted logs, and slogging through greenish mud for almost an hour and we arrived. At what I cannot really say, but I stopped where I was, sent the guys ahead, and enjoyed the view from the log where I sat. They went on for awhile more, coming back to me by swimming through the lagoon rather than wade the muddy shore. Back to the dock, over the boardwalk, through the village, out to the road and I was thoroughly wet, dirty and exhausted, but I had seen an Amazon Kingfisher catch a sardine, which was cool. I emptied the water out of my boots, caught my bus, showered and enjoyed a hard-earned Belikin, thinking that maybe next time I should just go to the beach.