Tour d’Afrique founder takes bike travelers on a 7-day, 750-km race through the jungle
Sunrise at Caracol in the Mayan Mountains
Caracol, Belize — Eight cyclists scrambled up the moonlit stone steps of Caana, Caracol’s tallest temple, to assemble under its curved ceiling of night sky, contemplate its 1,300-year-old ghosts, and practise the Downward Facing Dog.
Yellow, our group’s bike mechanic, sits a few steps above us with four headlamps strapped to his head. He illuminates Taj’s movements as she patiently guides our wisecracking group from one yoga pose to another.
At the beginning of the eighth century, about 150,000 people, 30,000 structures and 88 square kilometres of bustling Mayan civilization would have surrounded us. Now, only howler monkeys and the dark, tropical jungle of Belize bear witness to our awkward attempts to raise our tail bones. It’s taken five days and almost 500 kilometres of pedalling to get to this remote mountain plateau and we’re goofy and giddy, but not untouched by the sacredness of this place. The ghosts will make sure of that.
“Did any of you sleep up there?” asks a groundskeeper the next morning, sternly motioning up at the pyramid’s site. This is a touchy topic for Michael de Jong, the Toronto-based organizer of this Temple To Temple bike event. He negotiated for six months with the archeology department of Belize’s National Institute of Culture and History to gain permission for our group of 30 cyclists and support staff to camp here.
Two riders, Anthony and Stephanie, pause in their packing, and the groundskeeper shakes his head. “If you sleep up there,” he warns, “your parts will fall off!”
Everyone cracks up, though Anthony looks as if he’s not sure if this joke might apply to his bike or his body. Read the rest of this entry »
