We arrive at Los Ranchitos – which is about 50 metres from the entrance of the sanctuary and has been recommended to me, not only a good place to stay, but also as a place where one is almost guaranteed to see a quetzal – at about 7.00. Silke stays outside to mind the bikes while I venture in to check out our options.The woman in reception seems nonplussed by the appearance of a filthy cyclists emerging from the darkness. Camping? No. A room? Maybe.

A girl of about 12 takes me to see a room which seems comfortable enough but there is no shower, not even a cold one. “Shower is not included,” she informs me. I am covered in sunblock, dust and sweat and I haven’t had a wash in several days so I return to Silke and the bikes and we try to check out the campsite at the Sanctuary  but the only creatures we can see around the various darkened buildings along the highway are hysterically barking guard-dogs. We return to Los Ranchitos to find the gate is locked and stand there shouting until the woman finally returns and grumpily opens it. I explain that we have just ridden from La Tinta and eventually the woman relents. “There is a room with shower but there is only one bed and I have to clean it,” she says. “That sounds fine.”

It’s cold and we sit around until the room is cleaned. When I have finally showered I wander outside. The woman emerges from a door into the car park in front of the building. “The quetzals will be here at 6 in the morning,” she informs me pointing at a tree above the room I am sleeping in. “Really?” “Yes,” she says with utter certainty, “They come every day.”

I wake at just after 6AM and throw my clothes on and hurry outside but I am not filled with any great expectations. I walk down the stairs into the carpark as the woman appears in the gloomy dawn light. She gestures again at the trees above us and as we both glance up a quetzal really does fly across the clearing and land in the tree she is pointing out. I am speechless.

The bird spends the next couple of hours perching and preening in between flitting from branch to branch to pluck a berry from here or there amid a graceful swirl of tail feathers.

A male quetzal perched in a tree above the room I am sleeping in. (Photo: Silke Moeckel)

The family who own this small private Quetzal Sanctuary next to the official government are obsessive about the birds. Julio has a collection of feathers and an astonishingly extensive photographic record of their daily visits.

When the birds finally disappear, we breakfast and then wander off to explore the reserve. Next to the beginning of the rudimentary muddy trail leading into the damp forest is a pile of stout walking sticks.

Cloud forest, green and verdant...

... filled with ferns...

...of all shapes...

...and sizes.

There are always more...

...detail to discover.

Bright splashes of colour here and there complement the myriad shades of green.

The rising sun brings with it ...

...sudden bursts of light...

....illuminating everything.

...

...

...

...

The next morning the birds fail to keep their schedule and do not appear at either 6am or 10am as predicted so we decide to visit the official sanctuary 50 metres up the road. The forest is glorious but eerily silent: we see nary a bird, let alone a queztal.

A orchid illuminated by a beam of light.

Glowing green.

...

...

The Sanctuary is sadly small and the lookout boasts a depressing view of the palm crop across the valley.

Far below trucks roar down the highway on their way to Guatemala City.

We return to the visitor centre where a scruffy stuffed quetzal sits forlornly in a glass box and a series of faded photos grace the wall.

These faded photos...

... showing only the fuzzy silhouettes of quetzales in flight are the only quetzales we see at the Sanctuary apart from a moth-eaten stuffed bird in a glass box. Go to Los Ranchitos, is my advice, if you actually want to see a quetzal.

Nakbe is the first site on this route and it is only three hours walk from El Mirador and so I find myself arriving there at around midday. I spend the afternoon alternating between lounging in the camp hammock and investigating the heavily overgrown ruins. The surrounding land is essentially flat and from the top of the biggest pyramid the raised mounds that I can see in the distance are the structures at El Mirador.

At dusk, after cooking and eating dinner, I go for a walk around the encampment in the hope of catching a glimpse of a jaguar. I am on my way back to the camp when I see a pair of red eyes reflecting the light of my torch and my heart leaps for a second before I see that it is a grey fox.

I have seen hundreds of these animals over the last few months: they are smaller than their red European counterparts but just as wary. Normally as soon as they become aware of human presence they vanish. This one surprises me, however, by trotting rapidly down the path towards me and as it gets too close for comfort I greet it to make sure it knows I am there.

It stops momentarily and then without further hesitation, before I can react at all, it launches itself at my leg and then the animal is firmly latched to my calf. It takes both hands and considerable effort to dislodge the beast and when I do I hurl it, un-gently, at ground. It picks itself up and lunges again. I stamp my feet while scanning the area for a stick or other weapon. It retreats and disappears into the darkness. I survey the damage – shredded trousers and four deep puncture wounds.

Rabies!

I pick up as sturdy a stick as I can find and start to make my way back towards the camp buildings. It is a few minutes later when I see another set of red eyes glowing in blackness and I am incredulous when again a fox – it must be the same one – comes at me out of the darkness. I fend it off with the stick. This is crazy! These animals simply don’t behave like this. I drive it off.

As I walk into camp the men are ready to joke with me about the dangers of the night but they rapidly grow more serious as I show them my leg. I ask them for something to clean the wounds and they rummage around in their sleeping quarters for what seems like an inordinately long time before returning with a box. We look through it and find some alcohol and mercurochrome and a gauze dressing. There is no tape of any kind so they tie the dressing on with a red ribbon as I crack a lame joke about being a Christmas present.

Rabies! How long is the window of safety between receiving a bite from a clearly enraged animal and getting anti-rabies medication? It is two days walk to Carmelita and then I still have to get to San Benito or Santa Elena.

These are the thoughts going through my head when one of the men also voices a vague concern about rabies. How do you feel, he asks, as though I might start foaming at the mouth immediately and I realise that his knowledge of the incubation period of the rabies virus and other relevant details is probably more impoverished than my own.

I decide to focus my questions on the what possibilities exist for getting to Carmelita as quickly as possible but the conversation goes nowhere and I finally conclude that the best thing to do is simply to go to sleep. And, surprisingly, I do. I wake a couple of times during the night in the comfortable familiarity of my tent and each time if drifts back to me.

Fox bite. Rabies! Three day journey to medical care. But each time I go back to sleep.

I pack up my stuff at first light and go to kitchen shelter to make my breakfast to fuel up for the long day ahead. My usually reliable stove chooses this moment to fail me. I put it away.

“Can I use the fire?”

The men push their kettle to one side and I make porridge and coffee. I sit and eat.

“Can you think of any way that I can get to Carmelita today?”

“Ah, very difficult.”

“Yes. But I think it’s important. It is important to get the medicine within a certain time. I’m not sure what that time is but I know it’s not very long.”

“But you feel OK, don’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s a virus. It enters your body and then it grows there. It takes time. But once it grows you can’t treat it.”

The men are silent while I finish my breakfast and wash my pots. I go to finish packing my backpack and then return to where they are sitting.

“One of us can go with you. With the horse. It will take ten hours but you will arrive in Carmelita today. If you get tired you can ride the horse.”

“Thank you. But I would like to leave as soon as possible.”

The youngest man wanders off to find the horses which are foraging, where they can, in the jungle. It is some time before he returns, unaccompanied by a horse. One of the other men disappears into the trees in a different direction while the first one breakfasts. The second man also comes back without the horses.

I have another coffee.

The two men disappear into the forest again and eventually the horses enter the clearing followed by one of them. The other men leap up and try to lure the horses to them with the enticements of water and corn. The youngest guy is clearly the horseman amongst them but he is still elsewhere in his search for the beasts. The men call out for him. I decide to pay the whole affair no attention at all.

More coffee.

Eventually the animals are captured and one fitted with a rough rope halter and some padded cloth bags in lieu of a saddle. My belongings are stashed in old sacks and tied to the girth securing the pads. We are ready to go.

“Mount.”

I clamber onto the horse and balance on top of the pads. I know how to ride a horse and the arrangement would be reasonably comfortable if there were any kind of stirrups but there are not.

We set off. The path is mostly good but where it is not it is terrible. The day progresses. Sometimes I ride the horse and sometimes I walk but we do not pause. We don’t exactly chat but the man answers my questions about his family, his job, the forest, the local names of the birds we see. From time to time he solicitously asks me if my leg hurts or if I feel OK. I tell him I’m fine.

“Yes, you will be OK because you have no symptoms,” he assures me.

Eventually, as the sun is already drifting slowly towards the horizon we pass La Florita the second archaeological site and skirt it surreptitiously on a well used but clandestine path. I guess they guy should be at his post. We are all tired now, the man, the horse and I. The path deteriorates for long stretches between La Florita and Carmelita and the horse struggles valiantly through deep mud. We humans manage to avoid the worst of it walking along the narrow margins of drier ground at sides of the path using the tree trunks to maintain balance on the uneven ground.

It is just on dark when we finally arrive, weary and extremely hungry, in Carmelita.

I take the turnoff towards Isla Jaina where my presence and intentions are recorded by a couple of men at the entrance to the reserve. The road runs dead straight and totally flat but things are enlivened a little by the water which flows across it as it passes through marshy land and mangroves.

Looking back over the road leading to Isla Jaina.

Not a tourist to be seen. The Isla Jaina archeological site is famous for the particularly fine figurines that have been excavated from numerous burial sites there.

A massive observation tower provides a bird's eye view of the birds.

At the end of the road, I explore the area. Crossing a rickety foot bridge to the island, I investigate the ruins before returning to the observation tower where I spend a couple of hours watching the flocks of aquatic birds below me and the mighty storm clouds rolling across the sky above me.

A swallow, perhaps exhausted by its frantic circling in the inclement weather, rests on the rail of the tower, seemingly unfazed by my presence. I notice quite a few dead swallows on the road nearby.

Large portions of the access road are underwater. A whole host of aquatic birds stake out the sections where water flows from one side to the other hunting tiny fish.

These three birds, which I can't adequately identify, retreated, first, to dead trees in the lake and, then, further afield, as I approached.

The storm turns nasty and so there is nothing for it but to stay the night despite an empty food pannier. The only thing in my larder is some powdered freeze-dried re-fried beans left over from my emergency supplies for Cuba. Mixed with cold water they don’t make the best meal that I’ve eaten.

Poor bike: salty mangrove water is not very good for it. In many places it is above the hubs and my leaky front panniers are partly submerged.

I set off from Cancun in the hope of spotting some flamingos even though most of them are probably hanging out in Miami at this time of year.

An extensive estuary system creates the perfect environment for all sorts of water birds, including, during the winter months, large colonies of flamingos.

The area is a 'biosphere reserve,' whose environmental importance is acknowledged but is a step or two down from a fully protected national park. Rubbish, sadly, remains a ubiquitous feature of the landscape

In flamingo season I'm sure there are a few more people around but as I cycle along the sandy track between El Cuyo and Los Colarados I don't see another soul.

The water of the estuary is pink ...

... and there are flamingo traces.

However, the first flock of pink birds I spot are Roseate Spoonbills.

The open waters of the estuary are surrounded by mangrove swamps. I attempt to follow an overgrown path through the mangroves and spy a cactus adorned by large spectacular white flowers.

Finally, as I cycle into the village of Rio Lagartos, a few flamingos stalk gracefully by.

I spend the night on the other side of the river from the town, camping in a bird spotting tower where I admire the stormy clouds...

... and endless variety of birds.

The station manager opens our exchange by offering to buy my bike. I explain that without a bike my life wouldn’t actually function and that it wasn’t really just a bike but also my companion and friend. He looks at me searchingly and then nods, in apparent comprehension.

The inevitable question.

“Where are you from?”

When he learns I am, originally, from Australia the man bustles me into a air-conditioned room filled, unexpectedly, with brand new sleek black electronic equipment to watch a DVD about an environmental programme he is running which features images of Sydney, where a similar campaign took place. We settle in to watch the film but the previously unnoticed background rumble of a generator suddenly dies and a plaintive beeping starts up from the bank of electronic equipment. The man jumps up and glares balefully out the window at a man walking away from a ramshackle shed in a field across the road. He apologises and turns off the computer.

“This is the third time I’ve tried to watch it,” he says sadly.

We return to the room across the hallway and he shows me images of the local wildlife and asks me about my trip. When he learns that I have an interest in photography he guides me back into the other room to show me the framed photos he and his workmates have taken of the Peninsula’s fauna which adorn the walls. I question him about what kind of camera he uses.

“I had a Cannon. It was a gift… but I sold it.”

He sighs.

“Life is very expensive.”

We talk more about what the park offers and where I might be able to camp and how to organise meals. He invites me to take part in any walks or excursions with any other tourists that might organise a tour with a guide and then he questions me again about Australia.

“I would love to go to Australia.”

He pauses.

“I was invited to go to Queensland last year,” he tells me.

“Did you go?”

It is a question that I know I probably shouldn’t ask – that I already know the inevitable answer to.

He sighs, again.

“No… Life is difficult.”

We bid each other goodbye and I cycle the twenty kilometres or so to the end of the road towards the east of the bay and then backtrack to the most attractive camp site where, after a brief exploration of the limpid blue waters with my snorkel, I light a fire and cook a meal from the food stash in my panniers.

The Caribbean blues on the Gunahabibicanes Peninsula.

Close to my campsite, yet another Che memorial. It is hard not to love Che; studying a book of photos of him at the airport I discover the ubiquitous photo of his stern face is almost the only one of him that exists where he is not smiling or laughing.

In the morning, after a leisurely breakfast on the beach, I return to the ecological station to talk to my new friend. He tells me some tourists have booked a tour in the afternoon and I can join them if I want and directs me in the meantime on a short walk through the forest behind the Ecological Station.

Trees grow out of an astonishing jagged bed of rocks, inhabited by swarms of large brightly painted crabs. The day is grey and blustery and soon it starts to rain. I shelter under a tree lost in my thoughts when I hear a gentle croak above – glancing around a spy a blue bird, splashed with red and white, with a long ruffled tail, also sheltering from the rain. The bird rearranges its feathers and flaps its wings to display its bright red underside to me before flying to another branch a little further away. We examine each other at length before I turn back and return the way I came. As I walk along the path large brown birds thrash about the forest with unrestrained cries.

Cuba's most prolific wildlife is a multitude of land crabs.

Bird filled forest.

At the station, my friend jumps up from his work to greet me. He tells me the names of the birds I have seen – the Cuban trogon and the Great Lizard Mockingbird – and gives an astonishing accurate rendition of their cries. I examine his bird book and he apologises for not being able to give it to me.

The group, unfortunately, have cancelled their tour because of the rain, he informs me. A mini tropical storm is heading our way and so the weather is going to continue to deteriorate over the afternoon.

I am disappointed that my guided tour has suddenly evaporated – it is not permitted to walk in the park without a guide and I would feel bad to ignore the rules since this man has been so generous to me – but my friend tells me that groups of biology students are camped on various beach towards the west end of the cape conducting a survey of nesting turtles and I could, if I wished, camp with them and see their work.

As I set off on this venture, rain pours down accompanied by fierce winds but I find the conditions quite invigorating after days of intense humid heat and the weather suits the wild terrain of the coast.

Austere landscape...

... and wild coast goes well with wild, windy weather.

After a couple of hours, I come to a camp on the beach close to the road and wheel my bike across the sand to investigate. The two young men standing in an open sided thatched shelter are surprised by my appearance. A bundled form recumbent in a hammock suggests a third inhabitant of the camp.

I ask if I can stay but the boys are wary, muttering non-committal nothings and defer ultimate decision making to the sleeping form. I mention the man at the Ecological Station’s name but it seems to mean nothing to them. However, they invite me to sit down, referring to the inclement weather, and offer me a cracker adorned with the surprising combination of guava paste and mayonnaise. An old man, toothless and gnarled, who has lived on the beach for 15 years in a nearby small thatched shelter, comes by to examine the unexpected guest. Eventually, the girl in the hammock arises and again I ask if I can stay.

“If you would like to….,” she says uncertainly.

That’s good enough for me.

I put up my tent next to one that lies collapsed on the ground which the three young people then tend to. Accommodation sorted, we all return to the shelter where we pass the rest of the afternoon playing dominoes.

Biology students studying turtles pass the day sleeping and playing dominoes.

I am initiated into the game - the concept is simple but it helps to have a good memory, not something I am particularly blessed with. I have a surprising run of wins but I think I am aided more by good luck than skill.

As dusk falls I take a nap to prepare for a night of scouring the beach for turtles and wake to a meal of rice and canned meat waiting for me. My contribution of Quaker museli bars for desert is carefully perused and commented upon.

“Where did you buy these?”

“Mexico.”

They are impressed and their thanks are embarrassingly earnest.

After dinner the girl examines my hands and gets out a primitive first aid kit to scrub out my infected cuts with alcohol and dress them with ragged bits of gauze and tape. One of the boys wraps up some spare gauze in a scrap of paper and insists that I pack it in my pannier.

We sit talking by the light of a smokey kerosene lamp.

Towards midnight we take turns to walk the beach watching for the marks made by female turtles dragging themselves up the beach to make their nests. I sit with one of the boys on the damp sand under the unknown stars and he tells me the dreams he has for his future. We pace the beach again and again and finally, I go to my tent to sleep. The boy says he will wake me if any turtles appear on the beach.

I wake at dawn and return to the beach to investigate the nest sites.

The view from my tent.

The beach at dawn.

Turtle nests...

... are carefully marked. Sadly, no turtles visited the beach the night I camped here.

The turtle camp.

I pack up my belongings and when they emerge from their tent, bid a very fond farewells to the biology students and set off to reach the westernmost point of Cuba.

The marina on the western most point of Cuban - closer to Cancun than Havana.

Always hungry for fish, at the marina I sidle up to a fishing boat and am lucky enough to end up, before long, with freshly caught fish served up to me, fried crisp and brown. with a few wedges of lime.

Cleaning a fish, that minutes later is before me on a plate.

An impressive fish.

I backtrack to the hotel on the beach at Las Tumlas where a chat to a Dutch couple brings the very welcome gift of a tube of Bettadine ointment. I spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing on a squatted lounge chair under the shady trees on the beach availing myself of the fresh water showers and other comforts.

It is four-thirty before I set off to cover the 55 odd kilometres back to La Bajada where I intend to get something to eat before finding another campsite on the beach. Favourable winds speed me along but iguanas soaking up the last of the sun’s rays and families of jutias, a large indigenous rat, playing by the road provide adequate distractions to slow my pace.

When I arrive in La Bajada the sun is already resting on the horizon and the lovely women who cook for me have little trouble in convincing me to stay for the night.

Casa! A welcome break from camping where I can wash myself and my clothes and generally make myself a little more socially acceptable.

Excellent interior decorating.

When I finally do get my hands on a map I find that, while there are indeed a few tracks wandering off the main thoroughfares, few of them link up. However, I nonetheless manage to spy out a route that might work – the only issue being a river around the halfway mark that is going to need crossing somehow. I am discussing these route options with an ex-pat American who is overall quite doubtful about my plan but gives me what turns out to be a lucky camping tip; down the highway towards the Belize Zoo are a couple of bar/restaurants that he feels sure will let me camp out the back.

The first of these establishments, which I approach at dusk, gives me a rapid brush off but the second, run by a Hungarian whose overarching philosophy is stated as ‘anyone can do whatever they want here’, is much more welcoming. So, after my tent is set up at the back of the Hungarian’s house, I find myself downing a couple of beers at the bar with an eclectic Caribbean crowd during an extended happy hour chatting to an US archeology PhD student doing some research at a local site. One of the men, clearly a regular, gets up to leave as the happy hour finally draws to a close and the girl I am talking to suggests that I ask him for advice about the roads.

After I explain my potential route to the man, he abandons his plans to leave the bar and spends the next hour making phone calls, trying to track down someone on the farm that the road passes through who can help me negotiate the problematic river crossing. After failing to get a definitive answer, Bruce gives me directions to his house and tells me to drop by in the morning, any time after 6AM, to follow up on the matter.

So the next day, I arrive at Bruce’s house at about 6.30 and, after he has fried me some eggs and made the coffee, the phone rings and the manager of Big Falls farm is on the line promising that someone will be waiting for me at the river to ferry me to the other side. You’ve got to love a small country!

Escaping the highway is not so easy in Belize. Most roads that aren't the three main highways of Belize are private roads. This one runs through a cattle ranch called Big Falls. A chance encounter in a bar gave me the contact I needed to negoitate the river at the end of the road and the right name to drop to the people who accousted me en route to tell me that I was on private land.

Three men are waiting at the river with a canoe help me to negotiate the crossing.

Once across the river, I am faced with having to navigate a confusing tangle of tracks aided only by a few place names: Rancho Dolares, Hill Bank, Indian Church, Lamanai. I am not helped by the fact that mostly I don’t actually know what any of these names is referring to – a village, a farm, a reserve, an archeological site… I have no idea.

The people I make enquiries to are clearly dismayed by the urge to travel. “That’s not in this area!,” they exclaim, while making vague serpentine gestures with their hands to describe the way. One woman tells me that I can’t go to Hillbank because it is a long way and there is nothing there but wild pigs but a group of old men sitting under a shady tree at an intersection tell me that Hillbank is a ‘big tourist place’ where, obviously, as an apparent gringa, I will be welcomed. However, neither of these snippets of information contains very much truth.

Hillbank, it transpires, is a privately owned, protected wildness area that borders the Rio Azul area in Guatemala – it is, in fact, where I would have ended up if I had managed to cross the border at Tres Banderas. Three rangers are hanging out at their post at the barrier which controls access to the area and they ask me if I am expected. I want to give them the right answer so I hedge a little.

“Should I be?”

“Well, yes…”

After I admit that I am not expected, the guy who appears to be in charge radios to some higher authority and then opens the gate. Once I am inside he is much more friendly: he sends me to the water tank to replenish my drinking water, gives me a handful of tiny yellow mangos and then invites me onto the verandah to rest a while. When he see me get out some fairly meagre rations from my food pannier he asks me if I would like to try some of the ranger’s lunch-time fare of chicken, beans and rice.

Three park rangers control access to Hillbank, a protected wilderness area that borders the Rio Azul protected area in Guatemala. I am close to Tres Banderas.

They introduce me to one of three endangered yellow-headed parrots rescued from poachers and now undergoing rehabilitation so that it can return to the wild.

And feed me a fine lunch of rice, beans and chicken.

Eventually, well-fed and rested, I set off again across the savannah, a hot sandy place under the mid-afternoon sun, and struggle towards Hillbank, still unsure exactly what I am going to find there but hoping that it will prove to be a place where I can camp and possibly eat.

Riding on the through the savannah - a hot and sandy business.

I have left the savannah behind me and have re-entered the jungle when I see a couple walking towards me dressed in khaki jungle gear, rubber boots and sensible hats. I guess they think I look kind of strange, too, on my bike. I stop and we exchange particulars – they are ornithologists stationed at Hillbank conducting a comparative study on different swallow species. The objects of their current interest are mangrove swallows.

I ask them if I can camp at Hillbank and they look unsure.

“Well, you can ask.”

They don’t sound very convinced.

I ride off and it is not long before I arrive at a clearing dotted with wooden buildings overlooking a lagoon and, after some dicey negotiation, receive rather grudging permission to stay a night.

Nat and Katy, the ornithologists, return from their walk and, with greater enthusiasm than the management evinced, invite me to the mess hall for an illicit dinner and, more excitingly, to accompany them the next day on their rounds of the swallow’s nests.

The lagoon at Hillbank... with the nesting boxes.

Nat and Katy checking out their babies.

Six day old mangrove swallow chicks.

The chicks are exhaustively measured...

...and even have their nails painted.

Then we stake out the box, having wired it to trap papa swallow...

...a wily bird...

...who nonetheless eventually falls victim to Nat and Katy's evil designs and has his blood taken...

...and vital statistics recorded.

A dragonfly freshly emerged from its shell - still damp and wrinkled, drying in the sun..

It is late in the season and so most of the birds have already flown the nest and the days work is over quite quickly. In the afternoon, after Nat has managed to secure me another night’s camping at Hillbank, we go for a walk which ends in a refreshing snorkelling adventure in a small mangrove lined stream.

Afternoon sees the three of us relaxing on the verandah... (Photo: Nat)

...before a walk which culminates in a swim in a crystal clear mangrove lined creek.

Cool water is heaven.

The next morning, early, before I completely wear out my dubious welcome with the authorities at Hillbank, I set off again.

Packed up and ready to leave at dawn.

Deep black water.

One of my reluctant hosts at Hillbank has drawn me a very detailed and beautiful map to speed me on my way to the border that sadly proves, at the very first intersection, to be utterly useless. I pass through Mennonite communities and ask for directions where I can always receiving elaborate instructions with a myriad of very specific references to local landmarks, accompanied by a fluid wave of a hand that indicates any number of potential twists and turns. All in all, it combines to form a overwhelming fog of hazy information and a number of times I have to resort to my compass to make a reasonably informed decision about the way.

Nat and Katy have informed me that I need $37.50 Belizian dollars to leave the country and this leaves me with exactly $2 Belizian dollars at my disposal unless I happen to find an ATM before I reach the border – which is pretty unlikely – so, with my almost empty food pannier, it’s looking like a hungry day. Things look even bleaker when I discover that I can’t cross the border at the customs post at Blue Creek and not only have I ridden 15 kilometres out of my way but I have to ride an extra sixty kilometres through Orange Walk and up to Santa Elena.

However, I am saved from starvation by a lovely girl called Ingrid in San Felipe. I have been told she sells tamales and when this turns out to be misinformation I clearly look very crestfallen. She tells me to wait, runs to the kitchen, and then returns asking if I would like fried chicken and beans.

I can’t refuse this offer even though it’s probably going to break my budget and leave me in trouble at the border.

She invites me into her house and sits me at the kitchen table where she serves me a generous helping of chicken and frijoles accompanied by a stack of tortillas and a big glass of watermelon juice. After I have polished off the first helping she refills the bowl with beans and then, when I have finished them, she opens a packet of sweet biscuits – an item she surely keeps for special occasions – and gives me a pile.

We chat about our lives as she continues with her domestic tasks, cutting vegetables at a bench with her 8 month old baby daughter scooting around her feet on a walker with wheels. Eventually I get up to leave, asking how much for the meal, but she waves any suggestion of payment aside dismissively and insists that I must come back to visit again the next time I pass through Belize.

Unless I come across an ATM, I have two Belizian dollars to see me to the border so abundant mangoes by the side of the road are very welcome.

The Belizians are not much into signage, it seems. This is one of about four road signs I saw passing through the country. I particularly like its sense of perspective.

I quiz the guy about the border crossing to Mexico and he assures me it is not far but it is the hottest part of the day and I am still worn out from yesterday’s ride so I am happy when the young man points to some hammocks hanging in a thatched shelter. I find myself snoozing the rest of the afternoon away swinging gently in the breeze.

As the afternoon passes, the camp gradually fills up with people. Another man comes over to talk to me and takes me to the kitchen where the camp cook rustles up some re-fried beans and toasted tortillas for me. The first guy I spoke to comes back and shows me a cabin where I can stay the night before I return to the hammock with Como Agua por Chocolate, the novel I am attempting to read in Spanish, and my Spanish dictionary. My attention is constantly distracted from the book by a group of Ocellated Turkeys going about their elaborate courtship rituals.

Eventually the dinner bell rings and I return to the kitchen structure to eat with the workmen.

Later, back in the hammock shelter, the men question me at length about my life and I, in turn, question them about crossing the border into Mexico. They all agree that the border is close and that there is no problem with crossing it. There is, however, no immigration post but no-one seems to think that this small detail is problematic.

Rio Azul work camp.

I get a cabin to myself at the Rio Azul work camp.

A pair of Ocellated Turkeys. The male is involved in a riveting and, clearly, quite exhausting courtship dance. He keeps at it for hours and then collapses on the ground all tuckered out. The female seems largely uninterested.

In the morning I set off, with the intention of crossing the border back into Mexico. I am heading north towards Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula where I hope to find a way to hop across to Cuba and this foray into Guatemala has been largely motivated by the need to get a little more visa time in Mexico in order to organise the logistics of the Cuba trip.

On the road towards the border, I pass the Rio Azul archeological site and stop to explore. A group of three Mexican archeologists are currently on site and many of the workmen at the camp are engaged in various tasks to do with the restoration and preservation of the structures, presumably under the direction of these archeologists.

Nobody is around, however, and I wander about the overgrown ruins alone. On top of one of the larger structures, a rickety wooden lookout has been constructed and I climb to the top to view the jungle canopy from above. Circling the structures, I notice each one has an opening, carved through the stones, straight to the centre of it and I hope that it is possible to enter but I am thwarted in each case by a firmly locked steel door.

Overgrown ruins at the Rio Azul archeological site. Rio Azul is a working site with real live archeologists doing their thing.

A raided tomb - grave robbers cut their way into the depths of these structures back in the 70s and looted the contents of the tombs at Rio Azul. Most of the artefacts, recognisable by a unique glyph associated with the Rio Azul site, are now in private collections in the States. When I told one of the archeologists that I would like to see inside she informed me that a hazardous fungus infests the tombs and they have now been sealed.

A lookout built on the top of one of the structures provides a rare opportunity to see the jungle canopy from above.

On the way back to my bike, I spy a walking trail which lures me into the jungle for a diverting hour or two.

Spectacular trees...

Coati or Pizote - this little critter is surprisingly aggressive. He catches sight of me and comes scampering down the tree towards me quite threateningly. I backed off.

Finally back on the bike, I head towards the border. I really don’t know what I was expecting of a border crossing without an immigration post but things start to get a little weird.

First, I met the young Wildlife and Forestry guy from the work camp jogging along the road towards me. He stops and tells me that I am close to the border now and jogs away.

Then, the road ends.

Two other guys from the camp appear out of the brush pushing a four wheeler out of a ditch. I look at them a little confused but they gesture into the thicket and tell me that if I follow the path I will come to the road in Mexico soon. They assure me that everything is OK, the way is clear and I can go on. They check my bike over and ask me if I have enough water. Um, yes. I push my bike into the jungle.

I follow the winding footpath through the forest and the warnings of the people in El Remate suddenly come back to me. They told me I was heading in to the Zona Roja – the Red Zone – where drug traffickers and people smugglers do their business across the Guatemalan/Mexican border. I keep pushing the bike along the path while pondering on whether the guys from the camp had come this way specially to check if the way was clear for the crazy gringa on her bike, or, alternatively, if perhaps they themselves are the drug traffickers and people smugglers. They would be pretty well set up for it but they all seemed like nice guys to me.

Intricate plots for a complicated thriller set in the jungle suggest themselves to me. All the elements are here: an exotic location; a host of intriguing characters – the foreign archeologists, the gang of rough and ready workers, with their prison style tattoos, the handsome young Wildlife and Forestry worker, with his girl trouble, the cook and her assistant, rich foreign collectors, without many scruples; pickup trucks arriving in the early hours of the morning, full of mysterious boxes; there is a shady back story, with tomb robbers; sealed up pyramids with a deadly fungus growing inside; wild animals in the forest; a whole range of illicit activities – drug trafficking, people smuggling, wildlife poaching – to add unexpected twists and turns to a labyrinthine plot line. It is bound to be a best seller and if I can tie it all in with the Mayan 2012 end of the world prophecy then Dan Brown will be eating his heart out and I will be laughing all the way to the bank!

At the end of the road in Guatemala a discrete, but clearly well-used, foot path winds through the jungle towards Mexico.

Just after passing a small clearing on the path where people could potentially gather, while still under cover, I stumble, blinking, out of the jungle into a bizarre space. A bare strip twenty metres wide stretches away in both directions, adorned at regular intervals by white painted obelisks. On closer inspection, each obelisk, it turns out, is graced by four plaques, stating Guatemala and Mexico on opposing sides, while the other two sides are bisected by that imaginary line that makes nations.

I spend a considerable amount of time here, unable to drag myself away from this weird spectacle that makes so little sense to me. The idea of nations, a relatively recent historical phenomena, has never seemed particularly real to me and I am astonished by the way this abstract concept has been physically carved into the landscape.

I emerge from virgin jungle into this weird space.

Just so as you are in no doubt as to where you are...

...everything is clearly....

...delineated and labelled...

...at one hundred metre intervals. Absurd!

Eventually, however, after locating the road on the Mexican side of the line by dint of wandering up and down for a while, I am about to set off into Mexico when it occurs to me that, really, getting my passport back in order if I go through with this is probably going to be quite a bureaucratic nightmare. What on earth, I am going to actually tell the Mexican immigration people when I rock up to their office for my entry stamp? And what about the next time I want to enter Guatemala? How will I explain the fact I don’t have an exit stamp? Suddenly, it doesn’t look like such a good idea and it amazes me that it ever did.

So I retrace my footsteps and head back into Guatemala.

When I get back to the road I study my map. The guys at the camp had told me that there were two options for crossing the border and this one had the benefit of being the closest one. The other one is at a place called Tres Banderas, the point where the Mexico, Guatemala and Belize all converge, and the road is clearly marked on the map traversing the border. There is no immigration post there either apparently, but, perhaps, I think, if there is a continuous road, at least, I will have a more convincing story to tell the authorities.

I decide to go to investigate.

I find the junction and set off on a narrow track following a sign which informs me that it is 11 kilometres to Tres Banderas. The road doesn’t appear to get any traffic at all and it gradually gets more and more overgrown but I persevere. Sticks and vines constantly find ways to wrap themselves around the spokes of my wheels and my chain drive and eventually since I am having to stop to remove them every few metres, I get off the bike and push.

Suddenly, some way ahead of me I see a brown shape moving on the road. I stop and grope for my binoculars. A puma! The animal is walking down the track towards me, casually doing puma things, oblivious to my presence. It stops and I lose sight of it for a second as it rolls in the grass and then gets up and continues on its way, pausing again to rub its face on a vine hanging over the road.

The animal moves with a steady feline grace. It seems that the beast is just going to keep on walking down the track until it runs straight into me and I am quite tempted to allow this to happen but at about 80 metres caution prevails and I decide to let it know that I am here.

I wave my arms in the air and say, “Hi, Puma!”

The animal stops immediately and regards me very intently for almost a minute before turning – slowly, disdainfully – and walking, at exactly the same pace as previously, back the way it came before disappearing into the jungle to one side of the track. I wait a little while before continuing on my way past the place it vanished. The forest is so dense that I can barely see 10 metres into it.

It is not long before I come to a point where the track, regardless of the information provided by my map, is suddenly swallowed up by the jungle and there is nothing left for me to do but attempt to get back to Rio Azul before dark.

Puma! I am a bit over-excited (the puma is only about 80 metres away and walking straight towards me) and the light isn't great so, sadly, the quality of this image doesn't do the animal justice. In fact, the photo is barely intelligible and I shouldn't post it but I just can't help myself!.

The men at the camp are astonished to see me. “Couldn’t you find the road?” they enquire. I explain that, really, an illegal border crossing isn’t very convenient for me and they consider this unexpected fact. My only option now is to head due south to where I can cross the border legally into Belize and then north from there towards Mexico – a venture which requires tackling another 100 kilometres or so of muddy jungle road to the border town of Melchor and then traversing Belize to get more or less back to the point where I am now, only about 50 kilometres to the east and legal.

I almost ran straight over this little fellow and after photographing him where he was on the road I heard a rare vehicle approaching so I moved him out of harm's way.

Groups of butterflies in tasteful colour combinations sit on the road.

The mud situation is beginning to get tiresome; after a good start, the track degenerates and I have another difficult messy day ahead of me.

The gateway to the jungle... unfortunately, I am leaving it behind... About fifty metres past this symbolic gateway there is a real barrier manned by military personnel. They were truly astonished to see me appear out of the wilderness on my bike.

A sorry sight on re-entering the lands where humans hold sway.

Muddy, muddy, muddy. The road is negotiable but not at all relaxing.

So the day passes, negotiating patches of mud and fending off clouds of mosquitoes while toucans flap from tree to tree overhead, turkeys, guans and carassows stalk across the track and monkeys chatter and rant above me, clearly indignant at my presence. My fondness for spider monkeys becomes somewhat tempered by their propensity to hurl missiles out of the canopy at unwanted passersby.

The spider monkeys are less impressed by my presence than I am by theirs. They shriek abuse at me while shaking their fists and hurling missiles from above.

Not all the wildlife is so confrontational. A frog sits calmly in a log.

Antonio has given me what seemed like clear instructions on the route but they appear hazier in the forest than they did at his table. I am counting off turns to the left but I am unsure exactly what counts as turn as opposed to an unremarkable path. Additionally the road splits and branches around boggy sections and then reunites on the other side of the obstacle but sometimes the diversion wanders from the main stream for long enough for me to start wondering if I am heading into uncharted jungle.

Getting lost out here would be problematic and I’m not sure if any of the people who know of my plans are sufficiently invested in my welfare to ever know if I make it to the other side or not. I’m sure news will filter through eventually but I’m not certain how fast. However, I have enough water for two days and enough food for four and I imagine that even if I can’t find my way to Dos Lagunas, my first pit-stop, then I should still be able to find my way back to Uaxactun.

However, a sign duly appears – it says Dos Lagunas and has a neatly hand carved wooden arrow painted yellow hanging below pointing to the left. I am torn, though. I thought there was one more left hand turn to pass but this sign is so authoritative.  Leaves cover the track and the trees lean in overhead. Antonio told me not to take the second path because although it does go to Dos Lagunas the road is steep and round about… but why would anyone place such a beautiful sign directing people the wrong way.

Who knows? Another one of life’s unanswerable questions.

It's a beautiful sign. It's a shame that it points the wrong way.

So, obediently, foolishly, I follow the sign and the track gets steeper and steeper and, as it gets more and more overgrown, darker and darker. Moments of doubt assail me and I contemplate again what might happen if I get hopelessly lost alone in the jungle, anxiously calculating available food and water and days needed to retrace my footsteps but ultimately I am reassured by the fact that it is hard to get hopelessly lost if you are following paths or roads. You might not be able to get to where you want to go but usually it is possible to return to where you came from.

The jungle teems with boundless life, much of it in the form of biting insects. The environment is not so much hostile as magnificently indifferent to human needs. As I struggle to haul myself, my bike and my belongings along the punishing track I feel that I am indeed alone in the wilderness. There is nowhere to stop and rest, the only place where it is possible to sit is in the middle of the road itself, where it is not a foot deep in mud and to stop is to be besieged by insects. Mosquitoes whine all around me, ants swarming over the ground sting and bite.

The canopy closes overhead; there is no vista, no way to see the lie of the land or the scope of the forest, but just when it starts to feel relentless another sign comes into view and I go on. The track begins to descend again and eventually I arrive at Dos Lagunas as the shadows lengthen and sun finally loses its sting.

I was beginning to seriously consider retracing my footsteps to the last junction when I came upon this second clue indicating the potential proximity of Dos Lagunas.

Finally, I arrive. This is one of the two lagoons referred to in the name Dos Lagunas. Those inviting waters, home to lurking crocodiles, are sadly out of bounds.

Verdant green waters...

...with cute baby crocs lurking...

...and toucans above in the trees. (This is a Keen-billed Toucan.)

Dos Lagunas is one of the work camps where I hope to find some form of hospitality. I sit by the lagoon until a couple of workers appear. They are somewhat surprised to see me but welcoming enough. I cook my dinner over their kitchen fire and then collapse in my tent and sleep.

Unknowingly, I arrive in the middle of the World Cup qualifier between Guatemala and South Africa and so Antonio’s focus is somewhat divided – I am very impressed that he manages to lavish any attention on me at all. With eyes flickering between me and the television, Antonio tells me that what I want to do will be difficult, but not impossible, before we agree that we talk later, in more detail, over some maps. He then returns to bear witness to Guatemala’s doomed struggle with South Africa and I venture out into the blistering afternoon sun to explore Uaxactun.

Uaxactun is a quiet village lined up in two rows on either side of a wide green, set in the middle of ancient ruins. The Mayan site pre-dates the larger and more popular Tikal site. Crumbling structures surround the living village and there is not a tourist to be seen anywhere. I wander alone in the afternoon heat, resting often under giant trees.

Spider monkeys hurl themselves carelessly from one tree to the next with utter confidence. The ground doesn’t seem to exist for these creatures. I decide that I like spider monkeys far more than howler monkeys; spider monkeys are agile and move very fast through the jungle canopy, branches dipping and swaying as they leap and then hang nonchalantly from any combination of their five limbs. I wonder if there are occasional accidents… do branches break, perhaps?… is a misjudged leap possible?

The archeological site at Uaxactun is deserted, except for the monkeys and a woman with a wheelbarrow collecting wood.

As the shadows lengthen a small grey fox trots purposefully out of the jungle carrying a bird in its mouth, feathers curling luxuriantly from both sides of its snout. The animal is unaware of me and turns onto the path I am standing on. I don’t know which of its senses suddenly alerts it to my presence but it freezes and then leaps away and races back into the forest.

Later, while I am sitting at the base of a pyramid, I spy a toucan, in a tree very close to me, moving from branch to branch. This is not a Keen-billed Toucan but the Collared Aracari, a smaller bird, predominantly black with a vivid bib of red and yellow. Its beak is a deep vermilion, with startlingly geometric patterning. The bird’s beak, which is so over-sized that it is easy to instinctively assume that it is clumsy is, of course, actually an elegant tool. The bird hops and leaps with surprising agility and strength around the tree seizing various items and tossing them neatly down its throat. Then, suddenly, a red fruit grasped delicately in its beak the bird cocks its head to one side and takes to the air.

I return to Antonio’s place where I set up my tent in the yard and prepare for the road ahead by removing my mud guards. Antonio has photocopied a map of the local roads and tells me what I can expect to find in the jungle. He shows me the location of a couple work camps where I can replenish my water supplies and, probably, camp. It rained heavily earlier in the week, but not for the last two days; the roads should be passable although, without question, there will be many areas of deep mud. He casually waves aside the suggestion that I will come across the bandits, rogues, murders and rapists that the good people of El Remate seem convinced haunt the jungle, waiting for an unwary cycle tourist to pass.

The logistics of my journey sorted, Antonio donates a few tortillas to complement my avocado and so completes my evening repast and cooks himself some eggs. After we eat, I show him a few photos of some previous parts of my journey.

In the morning, when I am almost ready to leave Antonio unlocks a door on the verandah and invites me inside. The large room is lined with shelves holding an impressive collection of Mayan artefacts. They are, largely, what was left behind by tomb robbers who looted the local site. The larger more valuable items from the tombs have long since disappeared into private collections and these are the remnants. I have seen the extensive collections at the anthropological museums of both Mexico City and Puebla but there is something much more thrilling about the immediacy of these items which I can actually pick up and hold in my hands.

.

Antonio's collection of artefacts,...

...the less valuable items left behind by tomb robbers, who looted the site.

Stone implements found in the area surrounding the village.

When I have finished admiring the collection, we set off together as Antonio has decided to accompany me for a way, to set me on the right track. We head out of the village on footpaths through the houses and onto a road ankle deep in fine black mud which quickly coats my wheels. There are narrow tracks, paralleling the road in places, skirting the worst of the bogs but, even so, with viscous mud sucking at my wheels a couple of kilometres or so of it has me wondering about the feasibility of my plan. However, the track we are riding on, or, really, pushing and dragging our bikes along joins another and here the ground seems firmer and Antonio gingerly shakes my muddy hand and then sends me on my way with good wishes.

Antonio leading the way on a bit of jungle single track.

More monkey business.

..

Bonampak is about thirty-five kilometres past the turnoff and so it is not long before I arrive at a village near the site and set about finding a base from which to explore the area. I pull into the first place that offers accommodation and ask if I can camp somewhere.

A man shows me to a ramshackle structure on stilts overlooking the river and says I can put up my tent on the verandah. We almost come to grief over the price – the man initially quotes 100 pesos, a ridiculous sum for camping, but he finally, and somewhat incomprehensibly, settles on allowing me to stay for nothing. Camping under a roof is not a bad idea in the rainy season and after checking out the attractions of the river, I am quickly won over.

The campsite...

...with a private beach...

... and a swing over the water,...

After a swim I contemplate getting on my bike and riding the 10 kilometres to Bonampak but dark clouds lowering in the sky prompt me to take an afternoon nap in the hammock instead.

...and a hammock to lie in...

... while I watch the rain fall into the river fall into the river.

A candle in a paper bag to light up my jungle night.

The following morning I decide to walk to the cascades, one of the local attractions. I am not so fond of ‘attractions’ but the cascades are situated in some old growth forest and I am absolutely entranced by the jungle. A forty-five minute walk brings me to the cascades which are, in fact, quite spectacularly beautiful.

Some of the most beautiful waterfalls I've seen...

... verdant grottoes...

... and crystal clear water...

... in a pristine jungle setting. The sum is close to paradise.

I spend a hour or so sitting by the waterfall before making my way back along the path winding through the trees. The sound of heavy wing beats stops suddenly me in my tracks. I creep forward and spy a riveting bird perched on the branch of a tree. I stare amazed. I feel myself, clearly, to be in the presence of an incredible being. The bird is enormous, with black and white plumage, a vivid orange-red head, a bright red ringed eye. I try to get a little closer but the bird flies off, ponderously, to another perch slightly further away. After a few more moments the bird flies out of sight into the forest and I continue on my way, wondering what it is that I have seen.*

A path leads through towering trees and I spot a number of amazing wild creatures.

Low light makes for a fuzzy photo but I was astonished to find a crab scuttling across the path.

A towering tree.

Strange fruit in the jungle.

In afternoon, after stopping by at my veranda campsite for a refreshing swim, I make my way to Bonampak hoping to get there and back before the heavy afternoon rains set in.

I ride happily on ten kilometres of gravel road through more virgin jungle to the site but I find Bonampak produces a feeling of overwhelming ennui in me. Initially, I attribute this to Bonampak’s status as a ruin because, traditionally, ruins function to produce a feeling of romantic melancholy. However, after reflection, I associate the feeling with the presence of bored groups of guides waiting for a likely tourist, and a dense cluster of stalls selling trinkets, a ticket booth, a snack bar and public toilets.

I walk around the site contemplating whether I should give up going to tourist attractions completely. I wonder what, if anything, I learn from visiting the crumbling remnants of a culture of which I know nothing and no answer to this question occurs to me.

Ancient piles of stone.

Murals inside the structures.

Elaborate carvings.

Tranquil lawns.

Encroaching jungle.

On the ride back to the village, I encounter a green python making its serpentine way across the gravel road. I am travelling fast and I am almost upon the creature before I see it. The snake and I both recoil, the snake more elegantly than I because coiling and recoiling are what snakes are made to do.

In fact, the snake recoils and I jump, if it were possible to jump while riding a bike. I fling the leg closest to it into the air and grab the brakes. I come to a stop as the snake undulates off the road and into the bushes. Once it has achieved cover, it stops, draped along a branch – vivid green, orange eye unblinking, tongue flickering – and then slowly, in control now, it flows into the dense green foliage

*Internet research and the assistance of a knowledgeable person on an internet forum reveal the bird to have been a King Vulture