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It was a beautifully clear morning as the sun bathed the thick jungle overgrowth with it's penetrating rays, allowing the mist to gradually rise so elloquently up towards the heavens from the undergrowth along the road leading into the village of San Pedro Columbia. My mission I can readily admit had little if anything to do with a river this day, all the same, I had connected with a local guide in the village in the Toledo District of southern Belize and now we were together pushing relentlessly forward upstream.

This page is sponsored by BelizeRivers.org, a membership organization for the protection through the promotion of the rivers of Belize.

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With water levels in the Columbia River suffering drastically from a lack of rain, the pace was trying but it mattered not for either of us. For I must certainly empasize the fact that the stick the captain of our lone canoe was indeed making headway in time, enabling our expedition to make it's way to the source of the river.

The unseasonably dry weather was making life hard along the river for those that worked the farms along it's banks. The canoe paddles proved useless, therefore the long pole pushed us further and further upstream.

Bank in Paradise - Caye International Bank

Caye Bank International

The heat of the day was staring to take it's toll, but the captain and guide was determined. We passed by countless groups of local village women as they pounded out the dirt from the clothing that a family collects over a weeks time. Many women and children were seen bathing in the freshness of the river, the single most important water source for them and theirs.


Glass-clear water in a natural pool of the Columbia river in the Toledo district of Belize.


Maya man pushing his canoe up the Columbia River in Belize

When we finally reached the end of the river where the water reportedly emerges from a hole in the ground, we were both forced to climb up and over huge boulders that litered the headwall. At first I could not undertsand for the life of me why my guide who spoke Spanish in the former commonwealth nation that lists the official language as English. But as an explorer should always be prepared in western Belize as well as the far north, I replied in my broken Spanish to his explantions as to where the water hole that fed the river might actually lie.

And so as my older new friend and guide leapede from boulder to boulder I followed as quickly as my balanced allowed. Moments later we were together standing over a large hole in the ground that represented the actual source of the Columbia River of Belize. As my faithful river guide explained, the water was way down and he and his fellow farmers would have a troubling time ahead. He then asked that I refrain from mentioning his name, for he has never paid for the license that ultimately designates him as an 'Official Belizean tour guide'.

At the source of the Columbia river in southern Belize