San Ignacio daytrip - Canoe trip to Rainforest Medicine Trail

Raquel next to a two-dimensional palm tree - it has forgotten to grow in more than one direction it seems. :-)

The Mopal River (or Belize River, or Old River) runs right through the twin town and separates Santa Elena and San Ignacio quite effectively. It makes for a nice place to take a swim when it’s hot (like, always :-)), or why not wash your car 10 feet from the sign saying that it will rend you 2500 US$ in fines and 12 months in jail, and 500 meters from the police station...? Everyone’s doing it anyway!

It also makes for a really nice canoe excursion upstream. 2.5 hours upstream, passing by some fairly quick rapids (we had to get out only once, but then I was ready to pass out at two other) and a lot of beautiful jungle on the way, there’s some nice places to visit. We went for the Medicine Trail.

Sometime in the 80’s(?) an American botanist (or chemist or something – I really don’t remember), Dr. Rosita Arvigo, came here to work with Eligio Panti, a famous Mayan healer. She learned much of the old man’s trick of the trades before he died not long after at the age of 103, and combined them with some modern knowledge to create Rainforest Remedies, a set of herbal medicines for everything from stomach problems to light insanity.

I am somewhat skeptical of that type of medicaments, and prefer things created by chemists to that which has been grown, but Raquel is completely sold on the stuff.

Regardless, the Medicine Trail was very interesting: whether you believe that there is more effective modern medicaments available today or not, the old remedies has undoubtedly been used by the Mayans and the Bay-men (the white men who ruled Belize, first as Pirates, then as traders) effectively in their days, and as such was very interesting.

But to me, the main focus of the excursion was the canoe trip itself. I don’t know what was best, the hard exercise going upstream or the very leisurely trip down the river where I could focus on the wildlife and the flora that our guide was showing us. Among many other things I saw what must have been the biggest Iguana I’ve ever seen, high up in a tree!