Memories of A Veteran Part The 10th

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Kia ora Good evening, from New Zealand friends and colleagues

In Part the 10th of my adventures of a soldier I will finish off the story of my tour of duty in Belize in Cantral America.

Cancun Weekend

Chetumal

One of the highlights of my tour was taking a welfare Safari Landrover with my UK Boss who was on an inspection visit, along with two of my buddies, to Cancun in Mexico. This was a7 hour straight drive road trip North of 524Km. We would however stop just over the Mexican Border at Chetumal to visit the amazing Mayan ruins there. So the first leg of the trip was to take 2;30 to travel the 160km to Chetumal.

The Mayan ruins at Chetumal are quite stunning, they are 1400 to 1800 years old and they were to give us some insight into another activity that 2 of the party would be involved in at a later date on an amazing archaeology dig back in Belize. We spent the best part of 4 hours exploring the ruins and having a meal in a local cantina then we were back on the road to Cancun.

The Mexican Monarch Migration

We were no more than a half an hour down the road when the most amazing site hit us. No more than 50m in front of us was a thick orange fog of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Monarch butterflies migrating from North America to one central biosphere location in Mexico. I have never seen anything like it and this was after having seen the red land crab migration only two weeks previously. There was no way round and vehicles were just driving through this cloud very slowly and carefully. It took a full 10 minutes to get clear of the cloud.

Fun Weekend in Cancun

We arrived in Cancun at about midnight and couldn't find our hotel so I pulled over to the side of the road and asked some US female tourists the way. One of the girls said to me "gee you got such a neat accent" to which I replied oh no you must be mistaken, I'm British you are the one with an accent..... I went out with that girl for the whole of that summer and for two years afterwards.

MacGyver

On the way home about 10km inside the Belize border we got a flat tyre. It was dark and we discovered that there were no tools or a jack in the vehicle and not another single vehicle on the road. Believe it or not we fixed the wheel by 4 of us holding up the corner of a 3/4 ton Landrover while my boss the colonel removed the nuts by using two Swiss Army penknives. That trip was just one challenge after another!

The Jungle

There were two jungle related highlights to the Belize tour

The Fer de Lance

My boss the commander of British Forces in Belize a British Brigadier General was canoeing in the jungle with a good friend of min and was bitten by a very venomous and territorial snake. He was transported back to Airport Camp as quickly as they could get him there, My friend having first of all carried him from the jungle to the nearest road, as exertion would have accelerated the spread of the toxin.

As soon as he arrived he was transferred to a leer jet that took to Miami and a very long recovery involving several major transfusions. Only months before a British soldier had died after a similair Fer de Lance attack. We never saw the Brigadier back in theatre and his second in command took over for the rest of my tour there. We were all a lot more careful after that.

Archaeology

Belize was not a particularly prosperous country in the 1980s but it was an emerging tourist destination and I think had developed to a stage now where I would probably not recognise it

over 3 decades later.

The national archaeology department approached the Force to ask if they could support an assisted expedition into an uncharted piece of jungle to check out some satellites photograph evidence of a major Mayan Settlement. I had no hesitation in volunteering myself and I put a team together, consisting of myself an artillery staff officer, (who subsequently became Godfather to two of my children and who had carried the snake bitten Brigadier out of the jungle on his shoulders) a radio operator a native Belize Defence Force tracker and 2 archaeologists.

There were no roads or beaten tracks the only way in was to be inserted by a hovering helicopter and then cut a path to the location.

That all went well and we found the location and we had some major success in finding pottery a major burial plot and I even unearthed a jade stud earring, we were elated to have proven the existence of the site and in the years following the archaeologists have been able to return and develop the dig much further.

However on the way out unbeknownst to the party other than my friend and I we got hopelessly lost in secondary jungle. We were on a compass bearing cutting a track to a river which was 5km away but the path cutting was difficult and taking us a lot longer than expected and we were on a time constraint to meet the helicopter to lift us out.

We knew if we kept heading West though we would hit the river and then we could work out where we were on the river and march up to the pick up location. We found when we got there we were 4km away and with only an hour to go till pick up with no easy path along the river edge and the river too deep to wade.

We put up flares and guided the helicopter in and after some very fancy flying to get the helicopter in under a large overhanging canopy we were lifted to safety, using the winch which can be seen being lowered. We were elated, excited and exhausted, I slept for 23 hours solid when we got back to camp!

The Blue Hole and Half Moon Caye

There were lots of adventures in Belize as you can see but another one that stuck with me particularly was the visit to half moon Caye bird reserve. 100km out into the Caribbean. This took 4 hours in a diving boat and we had a black tie BBQ on the beach the day after diving the famous blue hole some 20km away from Half Moon Caye

I don't think that I can even begin to describe the privilege of being able to do these things that I have spoken about in these stories, and to tell you all the stories and tell them in full would take longer than both you and I have time to spend but I hope they are giving you an idea of what an amazing time I have had in my

From New Zealand and from this episode Good Night Friends and Colleagues

Kia Koa

Kia Kaha

Hamish🧐

YOU CAN READ HERE FROM THE BEGINNING PART THE 1ST

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Recent Comments

40

Another great episode. Thanks.

Yes, the Fer de Lance (Spearhead) snake is a native of Central & Latin America, known to the locals in the Caribbean islands also as Mapipi. The other local serpiente venomosa is the Bushmaster. Not overly keen to meet either! ...nor do I want to visit Snake Island off Brazil.

Have done some diving in UK (Jersey, Guernsey) but not too adventurous to try cave-diving which can be both claustrophobic and dangerous. Central America has a largely unchartered network of these.

I have descended the 180 metres on 1 rope into Howards hole and spent the 12 hours navigating the cave system underground with some rather tight squeezes. I was 60 LoL🧐 It may have been my last big physical adventure of that nature.

A braver man then me. :)

Mmm perhaps more stupid than brave LoL🧐

Hamish that is a brilliant story & one I can relate to very directly as I was British Consul there for almost 5 years. Blue Hole, Cancun, the jungle (I did the Staff Officers Jungle Survival course) & saw a few of those snakes & of course Tarantulas!

Loved your story. I might just write up my famous " body snatcher" (a nick name I was given in Mexico from one of my exploits!) story from Mexico/Belize as a Post. I just hope people inderstand the context!

Have a brilliant day tomorrow & thank you for bringing back some good memories.

Best Regards,

Trevor

I remember you saying Trevor, we would have been visitors to many of the same watering holes I am sure. 🧐

Absolutely. Nothing quite like a Belizean rum & coke!

Simply amazing!
I’ve never heard of that snake before, happy to say we don’t have them here in Kansas, USA!
The Blue Hole is beautiful, I will be doing some research to learn more about that unique place.
You have certainly been blessed with an adventurous life journey, thank you for sharing.
Be well,
KyleAnn

It is not a friendly beast and very aggressive.

The blue hole was an amazing experience the night of the day we dived it we had a black tie dinner on the beach of Half Moon Caye and we watched the most amazing electrical storm roll towards us like God had put on this natural firework display.

Then the heavens opened and it poured warm rain solidly for two hours.

At first light when the sun hit the humidity went through the roof and 30 minutes later everything was parchment dry🧐

It’s all so interesting!

It certainly was living it Lol🧐

Very awesome, indeed, Goose! You have lived a very exciting life, and I'm glad you have chosen to share all of this with us here, my friend!

NICEMAN ✈✈✈✈

You say the nicest things skip. Ididn’t tell the bit about my buddy and I being on opposite sides of a Fer de Lance as it came across the track as we were walking. He thought he would should it with his armalite! Yeh right I told him not to be so F!@#$%^ng silly (jolly stupid) .

The snake did what snakes do and slithered off into the jungle looking for a Brigadier LoL🧐

Wow, that was a close one, Goose!

Your bestseller will be the feather in your cap, my friend!

Jeff

Looks another great episode, saved for my downtime reading.

Welcome Andy, by the time you get there you will have a preview of my book!🧐

I will Hamish, if the rain keeps off I will sit out on the deck this afternoon with a cup of tea and get stuck in.

LoL you enjoy Andy🧐

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