Ho hum, another jungle stream crossing. Land Rover claims a fording depth of 28 inches for the RR Sport. Speaking from experience, we can say that number's plenty conservative.
The coastal lowland geography could not be more different than that of the mountains. Here the vegetation is sparse and low-growing, with only small stands of mangroves amid flat grassy marshlands and freshwater lagoons punctuated by occasional limestone outcroppings; this is where the Maya found their caves, which they used for storage and burials. Driving slowly, we see heron, hawks, and a rare jibaru stork, which can grow to 6 feet in height. The mud here is much thicker, chocolate-brown and gumbo-like, reminiscent of the American South, and while our tires struggle to self-clean, we lumber onward, making decent progress for the first half mile, past the first river crossing, which is only hub-deep.
Then the skies open, a deluge descends, and the trail turns into an impenetrable bog. The Rovers mire down, tires spinning and clogged, and our trek once again turns into a serial winch-a-thon as one vehicle, then another, gets stuck and retrieved. With few big trees in the marsh, we struggle to find suitable winch points, and progress is agonizingly slow. An hour passes, then another-and four hours later, we've barely moved a hundred yards. The rain shows no sign of relenting, and the afternoon skies are darkening. Two members of the Camel crew, who've pressed ahead to reconnoiter the last river crossing, return with bad news-it's 7 feet deep now, so we'll need to turn around and head back to the highway. And the quicker the better, for we need to recross the first river-and we have no idea how deep it is now.
Slowly, we winch each vehicle around, 180 degrees in a semicircle, and following our ruts, we blast towards the highway, driving like desperate car thieves. Treading Lightly goes by the wayside as our convoy bounces from one deep water hole to the next, engines howling at five grand in First gear as sheets of muddy water spray over the roofs and onto the windshields. The first river crossing is now nearly 4 feet deep-and it's an odd sense of foreboding one feels to see one's hood disappear as water rises to your beltline. How we manage to avoid sucking any water into our Rovers' side air vents, we'll never know, but by 3 p.m., we've all made it back to pavement, where soggy sandwiches and lukewarm sodas await us for an impromptu roadside lunch.
There's no more time for Maya sightseeing today-we've still got hours of backtracking to reach our evening destination at Chan Chich, in the northwestern mountains. We return to the highway, turn westward, then veer off the road a few clicks later to take a shortcut, we're told, that will save us time later. We drive graded roads past small farm villages before we enter La Selva Maya-400,000 acres of protected tropical forest, the largest such expanse in Central America. Once again, we're soon surrounded by a dense canopy of giant palms, mahogany, and teak as the road gives way to narrow washed-out sections of asphalt and dirt. Runoff from the day's rains leaves deep waterholes to ford, and our party proceeds carefully. Sundown approaches, and the banshee bleats of howler monkeys, thousands of them, fill the air with an otherworldly serenade.
Treading Lightly went by the wayside as our caravan blasted through water holes, to get back to pavement before water levels rose even further.
Nature has one last trick up her sleeve for us-a quarter-mile stream crossing in hood-deep water. The trick here is a light touch on the throttle, maintaining a slow and constant speed and a moderate bow wake in front of your grille. Luckily, the roadbed here is fairly solid, and we all make the crossing without incident. From here, it's two hours of dirt roads in darkness to our final night's lodging at Chan Chich, where we arrive rain-drenched and weary; our Land Rovers are filthy by now, their interiors caked with dry mud everywhere, and we're glad to be spared any cleaning detail as we enjoy a fiery Caribbean feast before bed.
The next morning, we pack our belongings, say our farewells, and board a small charter jet bound for Belize City at a nearby private airstrip. We'd missed most of our intended destinations, but we had learned a thing or two about mud driving. Most important, we got to spend a weekend immersed in pristine wilderness, far away from the tourist hordes. And we were reminded, again, of what we love about 'wheeling the backcountry-the scenery, the solitude, and the simple thrill of being Way Out There. Like the saying goes, it ain't the destination, it's the journey.
The governments of Belize and Guatemala settled a longstanding border dispute with a treaty in 1998, but clashes between residents near the borders of both countries occur sporadically. Primary causes of conflict involve the poaching of wildlife, illegal timber harvesting, and the plunder of Maya sites. A few weeks before our trip to Belize, a busload of American tourists was robbed at gunpoint near Caracol by a group of Guatemalan bandits. In response, the government of Belize issued an order advising tourists against venturing into the Pine Ridge Reserve area without an official government escort-which explains why an armed posse from the BDF accompanied us last summer. As of press time, we couldn't find out if this advisory had been lifted or not, so it's not a bad idea to check out the State Department's travel site (travel.state.gov) for any potential travel warnings before you go.
Exact sketches of hieroglyphic panels are used in the casting of clay and fiberglass replicas. Fabricating a single panel or stele can take months to complete.
The Maya cities of Caracol and Xunantunich-like the storied site of Tikal in Guatemala-are a magnet for adventurous travelers. They're also a magnet for antiquities thieves, who over the years have looted much of these cities' ancient treasures. While security at these sites has improved somewhat-and public awareness of the problem has grown exponentially-these repositories of human history are still vulnerable to plunder.
In 1994, Land Rover formed a partnership with the Belize Department of Archaeology to help fund the preservation of vulnerable Maya stele and hieroglyphic panels which adorn many of the temple walls. The project, which is still ongoing and which Land Rover continues to endow, involves the work of dozens of volunteers who painstakingly remove stone stele, where they're placed in storage while a stela house is being built to accommodate them. In their place, local artisans fabricate exact clay and fiberglass replicas-some of which are 10 feet high and weigh hundreds of pounds-which are then cast and painted on-site. Once completed, the stele are placed where the originals once stood, and the panels are carefully positioned over the originals, protecting them from the ravages of weather, insects, and would-be souvenir-hunters.