Belize

Hey Guys

We have just spent an excellent 11 days in Belize. This place is such a culturally diverse country from Mennonites (Belize Armish of German decent), Creoles (mixture of British pirates and African slaves), Mayans, Garifunas (Black Caribs), Mestizos (European and indigenious ancestory), Chinese, Japanese to expats, to plenty of social aid workers and of course your fair share of travellers. All Belizeans have adopted a GO SLOW way of life. From the old US school buses which make their way between every town (can´t quite call them cities) to the golf carts replacing cars on some of the cayes to the single speed bicycles and eventually to the barefooted rusta selling local art at the GO SLOW Art Gallery (which has not been condusive to the mad rush that Shands and I are supposedly in!)

We started in Orange Walk in North Belize where we took an awesome boat river trip up the New River which is flanked by jungle either side to explore the mayan ruins of Lamanai. We got to see and feed Spider Monkeys and treated to the screeching of the Howler Monkeys. From Orange Walk we headed to Caye Caulker - an island just off the coast from Belize City(!) where the mad rush seemed to start. We went snorkling with sting rays, turtles and nurse sharks on the barrier reef (the second biggest in the world)on a ruggamuffin sail boat where we were force feed rum punch on the sail back to land. The next day my ear infection was gone so we got to dive the Blue Hole which is not quite as glamorous as it is made out to be. You have to first survive the tortuous 2 hr boat ride on a boat with 3x200 V6 engines skimming across the open ocean. At the Blue Hole we dropped 40m and got to see the stalactites and mites which were formed when this part of the ocean was above sea level. Also got to see some sharks on the decent which no one else seemed to notice because they were all newly certified Open Water divers dropping to 40ms and all looking a bit narc-ed. One guy didn´t even notice his eyes being sucked from his head and came up with 2 black eyes from the mask squeeze! The 2 following dives were amazing and we got to explore some uninhabited islands. Unfortunately we didn´t get to see any manatees (sea cows)while in Belize - so guess we will have to come back.

After rushing around our 0.8km x 0.3km island for a week we moved approximately 30 mins boat ride north to Ambergris Caye and chilled in the town of San Pedro for a couple more days. The pommy dude who ran the hotel we stayed at used to live in Wimbledon Park Road when he lived in the UK - small world. We even got treated to the re-run of the Tri-nations game. Hopefully we get to catch this weeks game somewhere in Guatemala - doubtful.

From the Cayes, Shands and I headed westwards across the country to a small town called San Ignacio which only took 3 hours. In San Ignacio we went on a jungle hike where we explored Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) - the old Mayan Caves. Al/V/Liese/La if you in the region you must do this - its even worth a trip to the region. You get to go 800m into a 5.9km caving system. Its like the Cango Caves but 10x better. There is fresh water flowing through most parts and the only light is from your head lamp so you have to swim through some of the caves. Once in the main rooms of the cave you get to view ancient Mayan artifacts and human remains which have never been moved. It felt like we were Indian Jones for the day!

Unfortunately our time in Belize was short lived we really loved the country - it was also so good to be able to communicate in English again and interact with the locals more but now its on to Guatemala (which was not even on the schedule orginally).

Belize round up below.