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Beyond Independence, the Southern Highway leaves the banana plantations, first twisting through pine forests, and crossing numerous creeks and rivers, then passing through new citrus plantations, their neat ranks of trees marching over the hills. As you head south you'll see great swathes of pine and rainforest ripped down as Hurricane Iris tore through southern Belize in October 2001. The Maya villages which bore the brunt of the storm have now been rebuilt but the loss of forest cover remains a tremendous economic and environmental blow, and the affected landscape will takes decades to fully recover. Red Bank , on the northern edge of Toledo District, is home to one of the largest concentrations of scarlet macaws in Central America; for details on staying or visiting contact the Programme for Belize in Belize City (tel 227-5616) or Geronimo Sho on the Red Bank community telephone (tel 523-2233). About 73km from the Placencia junction, 58km beyond Independence and 1km off the highway is Nim Li Punit (daily 8am-4pm; US$2.50), a Late-Classic Maya site, possibly allied to nearby Lubaantun and to Quirigua in Guatemala. The ruins stand on top of a ridge, surrounded by the fields of the nearby Maya village of Indian Creek . The visitor centre has a good map of the site and explanations of some of the carved texts found there, which include eight stelae, among them Stela 15 , at over 9m the tallest yet found in Belize. Carvings on this great sandstone slab depict a larger-than-life figure in the act of dropping an offering - perhaps copal incense or kernels of corn - into an elaborately carved burning brazier supported on the back of a monster. Eighteen kilometres further south, at the junction which goes by the unfortunate name of Dump and is marked by a gas station, a road branches off west to San Antonio , from where you can explore the southern foothills of the Maya Mountains, dotted with ruins and some delightful Maya villages. At this junction the Southern Highway makes a sharp right turn, heading straight and smooth to meet the sea at Punta Gorda, twenty kilometres away. Halfway along this stretch, just before the East Indian village of Jacintoville, a bridge crosses Jacinto Creek, and a side road leads west to Tranquility Lodge (no phone, misspenny@starchefs.com), providing the only accommodation between the Maya villages and Punta Gorda. The Lodge, well signed and only 300 metres from the highway has a cosy dorm room with shared bath in a wooden house (US$9 per person) and some very comfortable a/c rooms with private bath (US$40-60, inc. breakfast) in the main building. Set in beautiful gardens and forest on the bank of Jacinto Creek it's an ideal base to explore the Maya villages - the village buses pass by on the main road. There's a really good restaurant, boasting the only wine list in Southern Toledo, but dorm guests can enjoy filling budget meals.
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