La Ruta Maya 2025
It's the first week of the dry season, after months of extremely unstable weather. The sky was blue with a faint haze on the edges. Perfect weather for heading to the river to join the hundreds of spectators gathered at various points to observe and cheer the canoes competing against each other as they begin their 3-day journey from San Ignacio east towards the mouth of the Belize River. The race is held every year in this month to co-incide with the 9th of March, which is a national holiday. One of the main gathering point for observation is at the Iguana Creek crossing near Blackman Eddy junction. Since it's so close to Spanish Lookout, a sizable crowd of Mennonites also show up especially since several of their businesses sponsor canoe teams.
As the hot sun beat down on excited faces, the police patrolled nearby, controlling the traffic on the bridge. Interesting, isn't it, that despite all sorts of technology available at our fingertips in the first quarter of the 21st century, the national police must still rely on frantic waving, wild gesturing, and hollering at each other across the river for communication. Perhaps simple two-way radios and hand-held STOP/GO signs are much more expensive than I thought they were.
A. Mendoza
