Xunan Tunich and Jerk Chicken

I wasn’t expecting much from San Ignacio but I ended up having one of the most unexpectedly fun nights of my trip.

I woke up early in the morning and I had absolutely no plans. It seemed like it was going to be a wasted day in Belize. The other “bad kids” were going caving and I was pretty much on my own. I stopped in a place across the street from the hotel to grab some breakfast, however, and ran into some other people from my group who were planning to head to the Mayan ceremonial center at Xunan Tunich and I decided to tag along.

We took the public bus to Xunan Tunich and walked about a mile to the Mayan site. Compared to other Mayan sites that I have visited on this leg of my journey, Xunan Tunich is very small. There are a handful of excavated temples, however, and a small group of folks and I climbed to the top of the tallest one on the complex and we were able to get fantastic views of the surrounding area. It provided a truly unique perspective on how these Mayan sites, located in the rain forest, were able to be completely swallowed up by the surrounding jungle. The Belize government did a great job of maintaining the site but you could see the jungle closing in from all directions. After visiting the site, we stopped for a beer at a nearby bar and then returned to San Ignacio via public bus.

I went to lunch with a couple of people with whom I went to Xunan Tunich at an Italian place about which I had read some great reviews. The food was actually pretty average but it did provide the line of the trip thus far. The owner of the restaurant was a tanned Englishman with a strong cockney accent. He also was our server as the restaurant was kind of deserted. As we were paying, an older, flighty woman in our group told the man, “You’re English is quite good.” The other person there and I sort of looked at each other as if to say “Seriously? You said that.” At that point, the owner responded, “It should be, I’m English.” I couldn’t do anything but lay my forehead on the table and bust out laughing. I think I may have offended the person who made the comment, but I couldn’t help myself. Oh, there are some in every group.

After lunch, I ran into the rest of the “bad kid” group. They were all exhausted but filled with adrenaline from their day of caving. After waiting around for an hour for everybody to shower, we headed to a nearby bar for a drink. Then we had another. And another. Eventually, we moved the party to a table in the back that was outside because there was some smoking involved. If you recall, in an earlier post, I made reference to a group search for Jerk Chicken. Well, after about beer number ten, the bartender came over to us with a spring roll of Jerk Chicken . . .

. . . Eventually, we finished our Jerk Chicken and went back to our hotel. I had a seat on the couch in the lobby and a girl from the “bad kid” group sat next to me. Within about two minutes, her head was on my shoulder, her hand was on my stomach and she was fast asleep. I was a bit tired myself and I sat there for about an hour with her slipping in and out of consciousness. After a while, however, I had to piss and my arm had fallen asleep. I slipped out from under her, went to the bathroom and returned to find her sprawled out on the couch in a fetal position. I got her up and walked her to her room so she could go to bed and then went to my own room and had one of the better sleeps that I had experienced in a while. I think that this is what solidified our designation as the “bad kids.”