Day 8

We left the hotel and began our day with a trip to Tower Hill where we boarded our riverboat to cruise up the New River. We saw blue heron, crocodiles, hawks, turtles along the way. The water lilies were everywhere. When we arrived at Lamanai, we could see the ruins come into view. We took a trek through the jungle to get to the ruins. There were huge masks depicting dead rulers and gods. Our guide pointed out many things to us but one of the most interesting was that there had been a period of total darkness of 72 hours at one point. He gave biblical references to the time when the earth stood still. We all thought of course, of the time in the Book of Mormon when there was total darkness on this continent for the space of 3 days when Christ was crucified in Jerusalem. It was more proof to me that the Book of Mormon is true.
Our trip back to Belize City was double the speed of the trip there. We raced a couple of other speedboats for a time. If there was a native fisherman in a small canoe, we had to slow almost to a stop so we wouldn't overturn him with our wake. A fascinating day ending with dinner at the Smoky Mermaid in downtown Belize City. We took the bus and went as a group for safety. It was a beautiful outdoor setting with the moon shining bright above us.
When we returned, we spent some time down by the beach in hammocks with our friends, the Worltons. We were in a peaceful setting with the Caribbean Sea stretching out before us as far as we could see. The sunset above was so beautiful and but it was kind of sad to know that we would be leaving this paradise and returning to our home the next day.