My first attempt to visit Pusilha fell short when the then visiting archaeologist from the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Geoffrey Braswell ended his digging season at odds with the local villagers of San Bonito Poite. We were tentatively scheduled to head up to the site to meet with Dr. Braswell when my wife and I ran into him one day on a street in Punta Gorda, the seaside capital of the Toledo District of southern Belize where most bush expeditions and archaeological teams pass through when exploring the Toledo.

Seemingly rushed, Dr. Braswell informed us that it would be better to wait until the following season to insure the approval of the Belize Institute of Archaeology which oversees Dr. Braswell’s work at Pusilha. Plus, apparently in the last weeks of the annual dig a handful of locals prohibited Dr. Braswell and his team from entering the excavation sites. Although Dr. Braswell provides gainful employment for many of the male villagers, the process at times puts him at obvious odds with others.

With perseverance, the second opportunity to reach Pusilha presented itself some months later when the yearly hurricane season which usually soaks a traditionally wet southern portion of Belize, turned out to be the driest four months in decades. Because of this meteorological anomalism the roads throughout the hills of the Toledo were dry and navigable for my twenty year old Toyota pickup. The truck has a long bed but no under clearance nor four wheel drive, so you have to pick and choose the off-road miles with care and calculation. With this in mind, I knew if the truck was ever to roam the back roads of Toledo, well this was the time to make the go of it.

And so, after a wasted attempt spoiled by poor planning that led to a missed turn in the village of Santa Theresa the day before, I got up with the morning flocks of parrots to prepare right for the journey.

Into a green bucket which I later placed in that open long bed of the Toyota, I tossed in four frozen bottles of Crystal water, three apples, two bananas, one rapidly melting Bounty chocolate bar and a single cola of Coke.

Next to me there on the front passenger seat I placed alongside my digital camera and tattered map of Belize, a yellow legal pad to be used as a log book to make notations of my distances as well as to write descriptions of things that would inevitably catch my eye.

I also brought along my Hunter rubber boots and my dull blade machete. Though one of the boots was now worn through on the bottom and despite the fact that that particular machete was browning with rust, my travels have taught me that a holey pair of Hunters and a dull machete are better than none in the bush. This day proved no exception.

As my base camp was some eight miles inland from the coastline, my choices were quite limited to fuel up the Toyota before I began the adventure. I could either go back into the town of Punta Gorda, or I could travel to another set of gas stations at a road junction referred to as Dump. Since Dump was indeed on the way to Pusilha, I opted for the one further off the path of the two.

I did so not because the gas was in any way better or with a higher octane, nor because their would be any savings since the gas was already well over BZ$8.00 (US $4.00) per gallon, a lot for even a gas frugal Toyota . No, I must admit that my thought process was driven purely by gluttony. For the distant station not only had good gas but it also sold fresh cut pieces of pound cake wrapped and ready for the passing road warriors of truckers and the like.

Tearing open the cellophane wrapper from the first of my two pieces of pound cake I made a right turn down the hill at Dump and quickly transitioned from paved tarmac to dirt rock gravel surface, where I would remain for the next eighty-three miles.

It took about forty five minutes to travel from Dump to Blue Creek, half way to Pusilha and the last outpost in the Toledo for most guide book travellers. From Blue Creek the road goes on for several miles to the village of Jordan before again crossing the Moho River. As the road then approaches Santa Theresa, there is a small dirt road to the right just before the school which lies in the centre of the village.

After the turn in Santa Theresa the road becomes smoother due in part to less vehicle travel in general, reflected by the fact there were only two trucks at the end of the road in San Benito the day I arrived. And the road becomes a roller coaster of twist and turns as you go up over one hilltop after another alongside roadside fields of corn.

All told and in just under two hours after I packed my water bottles and bananas into my bucket, I pulled up the hill and into the village of San Benito Poite. As it was early in the morning, school children scurried about with their exercise books and pencils placed neatly in plastic bags, all giggling and pointing at me and the mud covered Toyota that I had just seemingly landed in.