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La Ruta Maya (cont.)

LAMANAI OUTPOST LODGE, ORANGE WALK, BELIZE
Two days later, after an overnight stop in Tulúm for yet another swim, this time in the Caribbean, we arrived at Lamanai Outpost Lodge, a resort compound on the shores of the New River Lagoon, 100 road miles northwest of Belize City. A haven for animal lovers and bird watchers, Lamanai—Mayan for "submerged crocodile"—is the kind of place where you feel like wearing khaki, with its thatch-roofed bungalows, creamy coconut drinks, and giant meat hooks sprouting banana bunches.

"When are we going to hear a howl?" I whined to Brenda Salgado, the director of the resort's Field Research Center, who was taking me on a jungle hike to the Lamanai ruins, a cluster of 2,200-year-old crumbling temples, the site of one of the longest continuously inhabited Maya cities in all of Central America.

"Monkeys aren't on a time schedule, you know," Brenda sighed.

The two of us had been up to our necks in palm fronds for the last hour, straining our ears for the jet-engine call of a black howler monkey, which, on a good day, can be heard up to a mile away. But Salgado's guttural burping noises didn't even raise Micklet, the semitame howler that researchers are vainly trying to repatriate to the wild. But these primates prefer the 5 a.m. howling shift, and I had been a late arrival, having decided to boat 35 miles from the town of Orange Walk down the New River. It had been an excellent choice. The waterway teems with jaguars—all of which must have heard us coming—Morelet's crocodiles, kinkajous, howler monkeys, and at least 384 bird species. The kicker was sighting a family of four jabiru storks nesting 100 feet up a towering ceiba tree. The largest bird in the Americas, the jabiru stork has an eight-foot wingspan that is intimidating even through binoculars.

Sweaty, Brenda and I headed back for a beer at the lodge's open-air bar. I took mine down to the dock to watch the sun set over the river. Lost in thought, I was oblivious to what sounded like a speedboat sputtering to a start. The sputtering soon turned to a full-throttled roar. Sure enough, 20 feet above me, hanging from all fours in a guanacaste tree, Micklet was making a holy racket, causing the khaki-clad visitors to flock from every direction. I sank back into my deck chair, nursed my beer, and basked in the cacophony.

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