Backpacking

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.

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

Hey all,
hope everyones doing alright in the snow! So I'm sure Leigh and Criag have told you what we've done so far, so I'll go into some subleties... Met a guy on the water taxi whose duaghters went on an atlantic challenge expedition. He was super helpful, found us the best deal on the island! What a small world we really do live in. Today, I was "pick Pocketed" by a three year old in the snorkelling shop, lol. Our accomodations are basically reminicent of the shack on craigs property, with a bathroom. We're probably heading out to Lamani, (ruins) in the next day or two. We all are sun drunk, lol... still adjusting.

Take it easy everyone,
miss ya,
Ryan

The trip to belize was relitively uneventful. Besides the fact we were going to south america. looking from the plane down onto the islands off the coast of belize were amazing. but coming down here was even better. In belize, the weather is warm but so are the people. everyone is so layed back, it is rediculous. everything is a bit more expensive but if you ask around your bound to get the best deal. tomorrow we head to Belize City. its everything i imagined so far. im sure it will continue get better too.