Feb 2007

After waking up to the sound of our travel alarm, the three of us rolled out of bed and packed our day pack. Still in daze, the "Three Amigos" (as we've recently been dubed by a travelling couple of Americans) got into the first taxi that hailed to us and took the short taxi ride to the bus station. After arriving at the bus station, we were informed that we had just missed the bus to Orange Walk, the city from which we were to take our tour to Lamanai. Quickly, one of the men at the bus station told us that a taxi would be able to catch the bus before it left Belize City. With the stupor of sleep wearing off and the adrenalin kicking in, we lept into the seriously dilapodated taxi cab and sped of at breakneck speed, taking all the inside corners and barely slowing down for any signs or speed bumps. Mind you, the breakneck speed was probably only about 60 kilometers an hour, but the rickety car and the tiny streets gave the illusion of a much faster ride. Once aboard the bus, the ride was uneventful, save for meeting a Canadian couple from Quebec and a SCUBA diver from Croatia. The Canadaian couple got off at a toll bridge relatively close to Orange walk because they had heard of better prices for the boat tour. This was our plan alson, however I misinterpreted the guide book and we found ourselves in Orange Walk, the place of the more expensive tour. After paying $40 USD, we were told that the tour didn´t leave for another hour, so we hit the local food court/market to sit and relax. Our tour began with a walk through Orange Walk and seeing a local church. We were then led to the river and began one of the most amazing boat rides we've ever been on. The boat tour was close to two and a half hours long and we stopped everytime there was a hint of wild life. The river meandered over many kilometres and the small launch, which was about twenty feet long had one-hundred and fifteen horsepower, which was definatly overkill. We also ran into many local fisherman who were ahppy to show us there catch and tell us which ones were ¨Good eats.¨ We came across so much wildlife as to be rediculous. There was crocodiles, iguanas, numerous birds including a Japanese Stork which has a wing span of over seven feet and stands five feet tall. We also passed an old sugar mill which Leigh and I could smell from easily a kilometre away. (Smells like honey). The next surprise on this twisted river was a German Menonite villiage. As one can imagine, Menonites are quite an interesting sight, what with their lack of power and any modern tools. Our interest was enhanced by their location, deep in the jungle. My first question was how did they get all their horses and buggies down the river, or into the middle of the jungle in the first place. Deaper into the jungle the river widened into a lake and we all caught a glimpse of a Mayan temple poking from the tree tops. Once at Lamanai, we all cuaght our breath over a Fanta and took in our jungle surroundings. Next, our tour guide took us on an hour and a half hike through the reserve and up the two highest temples. Our tour guide was very knowledgable and told us about many trees and plants. One such tree was the "Give and Take tree." Its called this because the needles on the bark of the tree will give you a fever for a few hours, but rubbing the sap from the inside of the tree stops this effect imediately. After our guided tour of the ruins, we sat under a cabana and had a home cooked lunch, courtesy of our tour guide. Our amazing meal consisted of rice and beans with chicken. Also, side salads both veggie and potatoe, not to mention fried plantain. Since we left Lamanai later than was planned, our boat ride back was mostly zipping through the narrow river as fast as possible to get two ladies back to their buss on time. Our tour ended with much enthusiasm for our guide as it was a one man show, and probably one of the more memorable experiences for all involved. Our bus ride back to Belize City was a laughable experience to say the least. The first bus we let pass because it was packed well over double capacity. It then came to our attention that all sunday night busses were packed and that it wasn't going to get much better. We took the next out going buss bound for Belize City and stood and sang in the aisle, all the while pressing out hands against the roof in a vain attempt to steady ourselves. When we arrived in Belize City, Maya, the croatian we met on our tour and the Kiwi, Jeremy walked together and had amazing ice cream, a beautiful end to the day. Once we got into our guest house, all three of us collapsed with exhaustion and made sure the alarm was off, so that we could sleep as late as possible.

All around a wonderful day, making memmories that will latst a lifetime.

Ryan

Belize city was ok, it was a little more sketchy then i wanted, but sketchyness is to be expected in any large city, we were more interested in the area surrounding belize city. we visited the lamanai ruins around orange walk, we got to go on a really awsome river with tonnes of wild life and some german menonites., the view from the top of the tallest maya building was breath taking but the howler monkeys were really erritating at the maya ball court.

San ignacio was a very beautiful town, the people were all so nice and helpful. everyone spoke english still which was good in the sense that we knew kinda what we were doing, but bad in the sense that we werent learning any spanish. We stayed at a fairly new campsite that wasnt in our guidebook. it was really nice, finally i was able to lie in a hammock. we visited the Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve, there were some neat caves. The first one was ginormous it was interesting because of its grandeurness alone. The second cave was a bit harder to get into. Your had to crawl a bit to get into the entrance but the inside was amazing, even though im not usually impressed with caves it was still pretty cool; there was also a 100ft waterfall and some clifts which was really refreshing after sweating in the hot hot jungle, the bus ride up to the caves was the most fun it was bumpy, there were only half of the plug ins for the seatbelts, it was a blast. We also visited the ruins cahal pech, the ruins themselves were completed, seeing the completed ruins was really interesting. im reall excited for guatimala, where everything is cheaper and we might be able to afford a drink at the bar.

we crossed the boarder into guatemala without a hitch, it was about 2 hours from the boarder to santa elena, we had many taxis competing for our business. The new money was more difficult to convert, every USD is worth 7gd which makes everything very cheap. we got a loaf of bread, peanut butter(which is a bit more expensive), 3 drinks and 10 bananas it cost $7 USD. the loaf of bread cost about $.30USD. everyone is doing fine so far. except for being extremely hot. ive had a hard time sleeping the last few nights because of the heat, hopefully it will be cooler in tikal, which im super excited for.

we have to watch our money more now. we were 225usd over our budget, but thats to be expected because Belize is one of the more expensive countries. when we get to san pedro it will be nice just to sit down on a hammock and sip a cold one as well as be able to afford it.

climatized to the weather yet. we put on a rediculous amound of sunscreen and all three of us got sun burned on the sailing/snorkling trip. i got a rediculous sunburn on my wrists for some reasons, a bit on the back, and my right ear; craig got a sunburn on the nose and on the back and the back of the leg. ryan got his back burnt as well as his wrists, but the party between his shoulder blades isnt burnt which is really weird. but we are lathering the sunscreen on now because the city was even more hot then the island. the heat bounces off the concrete and radiates back to us in every direction. we were relieved to get our packs to the hotel just on the north west side of town, ma ma chens or something like that

afterwords we started to make our way back through town and met a man who desided to give us a tour back across town past our hotel and into a resturaunt, we followed his because he really seem to know what he was doing.

So, as promised I will give everyone a outline of what were planing to do for the next week or so. (Mostly this is for the parents benifit, but interesting for the rest of you) We are planning to stay in Belize City for two nights starting tonight. Tomorrow we are off to Lamanai, a mayan ruin site for the day, then Back to Belize City. The next day were heading to San Ignacio in western Belize, possibly go see "100 ft Falls" Which is more like 1500 apparently. The next day we intend on making the boarder crossing to Guatemala. From there we are heading to Tikal for a night. Then onto Guatemela city just to stop over, then on to San Pedro la laguna to stay for a week and learn some spanish.

Happy trails all!

Ryan

Hey everyone,
First off I saw that many many people are visiting the blog, which makes me happy. Its nice to know many people are following our epic adventure. Our last blog entries were short, since we all went on one computer in an hour's time, thus we were rushed.

Today we are in Belize City. Its hella hot. We had a good night on the island of Caye Caulker last night, I slept very well. Leigh polished off his nalgene of rum punch, and I laughed at him. This morning was beautiful out, the breeze was awesome on the beach and we caught the boat to Belize City at 10:30 this morning, it was a half hour late (it cause everyone here is soo damned laid back (its awesome)). Today we found a 3 person room for the next 2 nights, at $60 BZD a night. Its pretty nice, not as good as the beach house, but its in a safe neighbourhood and its near a bit of stuff.

Interesting thing happened today though. We were walking on the street, and some guy stopped us, and told us the street we were gonna walk down was very dangerous. So he took us back towards our guesthouse, and he showed us this nice place to eat, and he showed us to the empty upstairs with a nice breeze. We talked to him for a while, got to know a few things about the city. Then he definately made it clear that he was trying to scam some money from us, unfortunately. It was quite funny actaully, he said it was his 60th birthday, and that he had 11 children to feed. He asked for five bucks a piece, and, well, that wasn't gonna happen. So Ryan faked having to go to the washroom to slip downstairs to pay our bill. Then we said our goodbyes to this mysterious man, and gave him probably less than one dollar in USD (which was useless to us because they'll only accept American bills down here.. not coins).

We had another quick scare today. We had just arrived in Belize city from Caye Caulker, and we needed money, badly. We probably had about $3 BZD to our name. So after getting off the boat we headed straight for the only bank in the city that would accept foreign cards. After we asked around for the bank, we were told that it had changed to a different bank (aww crap). We went there anyways, and we needed to swipe a card to get into the ATM area. Our very foreign cards did not work at all, and we weree stuck outside, fortunately a friendly local swiped her card to let us in. Then my card worked fine and we took out $600 BZD for the next few days.

Well, now you are up to date.

Take it easy.

- Craig