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Published: October 2nd 2007
Finally, some sun!
From Tulum, I set off at 5:30 am (yikes!) to get a taxi to catch a bus to catch another bus to catch a taxi to get a boat (phew!)...... and then finally I arrived in Caye Caulker (Key Corker), a tiny island 45 minutes off the coast of Belize City.
Belize is an English speaking country (The Queen is on their banknotes!) so it's really nice to have a bit of a break from Spanish for a while. The locals are so friendly here. Everyone stops to talk to you on the street or on the bus. Their accent is lovely to listen- a strong sing-song Carribean accent, but it is sometimes quite hard to understand!
The catchphrase here is 'Go Slow' and it's no joke. The toilet flooded in my dorm and water was in a massive puddle on the floor (luckily not near my bed!) They didn't bother to clear it up til a day later (and didn't seem to be fussed that it was putting off prospective customers!)
One thing that I've noticed here is that a lot of the women are MASSIVE!!! And usually wearing skimpy, skin-tight outfits! Maybe that's
the reason why most of the shops only sell diet drinks!!
Bizarrely there isn't really a beach here as such. There are lots of sandy places, but not places where you can sunbathe and take a dip in the water when you feel like it. The only place you can really swim is a place called 'The Split' at the north of the island where a hurricane 'split' the island in 2 parts yuears ago. There is a patch of sand there, but I just presumed that the whole island would be beachy everywhere!
There is a reef really close to Caye Caulker, which means lots of snorkling and diving opportunities. There is a really famous diving site here called 'The Blue Hole' which is a 120m deep sink hole in the middle of the ocean where you can swim with loads of sharks. I'm sure it would have been amazing, but it sounded a bit scary (and expensive) for me!
So I settled with a snorkelling trip and had a really great time. I was armed with a new waterproof contraption to put my digital camera (bought with the vouchers from the PGHS lower school teachers-
thank you ladies!) and ready to go! The reefs weren't that fantastic and I didn't see many exciting fish (apparently because of the hurricane a few weeks ago) but the highlight was swimming with loads of stingrays!
I was really freaked out at first and convinced that I'd meet the same fate as Steve Irwin, but when I calmed down they were really cool! They are really ugly buggars, but when they glide past you they rub their wings against you and it's really weird and smooth/slimy! There must have been about 20 of them. It was amazing! Also saw a mahoosive pufferfish which was swimming around me for ages. Was quite relieved that it was only afterwards that I found out that they are potentially poisonous if it got scared and puffed up!
The captain of the boat was fishing off the side ad diving for conches, so we had a nice fish, conchmeat and rice dinner as the sun set. We also passed an area near the mangroves wher seahorse live, so the captain scooped one up in a glass bowl for us to have a closer look.
The only other news is that I
have been covered in bites for the past few days. First all over one arm and shoulder, then the other arm, then my bum and now my legs. Cue people in the streets shouting " Hey bootiful.....oh....Dem mosquitos got you bad man!" I started getting them in Mexico and knew that they weren't mosquito bites, but thought that they might be sand flies. It took me a good while to realise that they were bedbug bites. Nice! Am completely paranoid about everywhere I sleep now!
Nite-nite for now, and don't let the bedbugs bite! xxx
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Hannah
non-member comment
Oh lady your poor arm. Is this even with deet and sleeping bag liner? That's it, I'm staying in England where it's so cold even the bugs hibernate!